our anonymous university student in cambridge, england found this note pinned to the door of his shared college house. “the guy who wrote it moved here from america about five weeks ago and is about eight years older than the rest of us in the house. he seems to be a nice guy, but has this strange aggressive side that we are now a little wary of. last week he cleaned out all the fridges, claiming he had not been offered any space in them, throwing away open food belonging to other people.”
adds our submitter: “we are a pretty relaxed household and have lived with the mystery soaker for the whole year. it seems a little odd that this guy is making all this fuss so close to the end of term when we will all leave and he will presumably have the house to himself.”
related: oxford drama
103 responses so far ↓
#1
Jessica
I love it lol, sad he couldn’t think of anything original, we know his mother doesn’t live there… it’s been done before.
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:04 am rating: +1
#2
anglophile
Wet socks are so irritating.
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:12 am rating: +19
#3
Canthz_B
Put a towel down for a gallon? Try a mop there, Sparky! Cambridge?
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:12 am rating: +5
#4
N/A
If this guy is so old why does he want to share a house with a bunch of teenagers anyway? If he can afford to come to Cambridge from the US then I’m sure he could stretch to renting a single room or a bed-sit somewhere or I’m sure Cambridge has en-suite dorm rooms available.
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:13 am rating: +8
#5
darling
It’s so sad.
its people like him who make everyone think that all Americans are like that.
I swear to you some of us are actually polite!
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:21 am rating: +2
#6
park rose
Well, if he’s writing that note in the U.K. they’re just going to think that he is the mystery soak, cos’ ‘pissed’ means to be on the booze, drunk, pickled and so on. At least the Australian derivative does.
Yeah, yeah, we know you’re pissed. Thanks for stating the bleedin’ obvious. Who let him have the pen again? You know how eloquent he gets when we let him have a shandy or two…
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:24 am rating: +8
#7
stickman
Shame and humiliation will certainly keep the floor dry.
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:26 am rating: 0
#8
Woman on the Verge
Won’t he be sorry when the mystery soaker’s mother does move in? “You asked for it, young man, so you better suck it up!” as she smacks him on the ass with her mop.
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:29 am rating: +14
#9
Woman on the Verge
But only towel off a little because I like wet young men wandering the halls….
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:30 am rating: +4
#10
vertigo29
Hah, I am a current student at Cambridge and I have the same problem at my college!
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:43 am rating: +1
#11
claw71
Dear V——:
I don’t have an issue with your candor and while I believe that you might be overstating the amount of water I left on the bathroom floor, I suppose that I might be a little inconsiderate. I don’t believe that I am stupid, nor do I think I am particularly lazy but those are both valid points. Unfortunately your theory that I’ve developed bad habits because my mother has been following me around with a towel is way off the mark. My mother is dead. She died in a car accident three years ago yesterday. So you can imagine that your note really hit home. I cried when I read it. I miss me mum. She was a brilliant and beautiful woman who was killed by an American student who simply couldn’t be troubled to drive on the appropriate side of the road. An American who, coincidentally, looked a lot like you.
I’ll be sure to towel off more thoroughly in the future. Not one drop of water will trouble you from now on, but what I won’t wipe up are my tears. Everytime I dry off I’m going to think about my mother and how I’ll never see her again. Thank you for that.
D——–
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:47 am rating: +28
#12
GhostWriter
Just imagine how angry he’s gonna be when he finds my socks soaking in the sink, and accidentally dries his face with my underwear off the towel rack!
Jun 15, 2009 at 8:53 am rating: +3
#13
GhostWriter
The Guy on the Couch has gone horribly awry.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:04 am rating: 0
#14
park rose
It’s a cry for Help!
I think it’s begging for a Knock on Wood parody for the songsters out there, too.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:07 am rating: +6
#15
park rose
Everyone knows that you have a spat or two with loved ones just before they are going to leave you for a long time so that you can yell ‘good riddance!!’ rather than admit that your heart is broken.
It’s a love letter. Anyone can see that.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:08 am rating: +9
#16
RP
Frankly, I’m too distracted by the “he emptied the entire refrigerator” story at the top to comment on the note itself.
He threw away all of your food? How did that not lead to the rest of you beating the crap out of him (or at least getting money from him for the food he threw out)?
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:14 am rating: +11
#17
Farf
Dear V,
*candour
Thanks, the Brits in the house.
…I know it would be a cheap shot, I just don’t think I could help myself.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:21 am rating: +3
#18
bullwinkle
I’m so happy someone chooses to uphold the stereotype of the aggressive, loud mouth American.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:40 am rating: +1
#19
Joe
It’s called a water closet for a reason, wanker.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:48 am rating: +7
#20
john
when people start out by saying they want to keep it simple, they rarely do.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:53 am rating: +5
#21
[dave]
this was the ad on the bottom of my RSS reader:
http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=CPbYtuOezeub3QEQrAIY7wEyCHl9boQL1SKO
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:04 am rating: +1
#22
claw71
Let this be a lesson to you: Never let somebody wearing a Guy Fawkes mask move into your house.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:29 am rating: +8
#23
oi
aye! aye!
your mother does not live here.
I thought it got old and nobody uses it anymore. That would be catastrophe. I am so happy now.
oh just saw, crackjob shares this sentiment with me. high five!
Jun 15, 2009 at 11:19 am rating: +1
#24
susannie
“we are a pretty relaxed household and have lived with the mystery soaker for the whole year.”
Yikes. What’s up with all the “relaxed” households where nobody thinks it’s disgusting with water on the floor and it’s considered excessive to wash the bathroom more than twice a month? I hope it’s not carpet on the floor.
I somehow understand how it’s difficult to write creative PAN’s in relaxed households… How many has he had to write before..?
Jun 15, 2009 at 11:59 am rating: +2
#25
Diane
I read “She doesn’t live here, and I’m pissed, so either start doing it or stop using this bathroom.” to be that the writer was sleeping with Mystery Slosher’s mother, but since the writer was drunk, Slosher would be a fine substitute. Apparently, you have to provide sex to use the bathroom. Nookie for dookie? Ewww.
Jun 15, 2009 at 12:59 pm rating: +2
#26
Misst
GUH!! My roommate does that all the time when he takes a shower and it drives me nuts. When I take one I only leave a couple tiny spots of water and I don’t towel off first so I don’t know how he does it. I have decided that instead of being a nag I just take one of his towels off the back of the door and clean it up
.
Jun 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm rating: +2
#27
TheOldSchool
Why doesn’t he have everyone take a shower, one by one, in front of him in order to discover who the culprit is?
Afterwards they could snap towels, have a pillow fight, and then some playful rough-housing, capped off with hot toddies and a little rumpy-pumpy.
Jun 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm rating: +5
#28
aaa
Y’see, what our anonymous Cambridge student isn’t telling us is that they’ve been gaslighting the strange old foreigner because they hate Americans and are trying to get him to go fucking crazy so he’ll do something naked and violent in a public place and get arrested and deported. Or something like that.
P.S. -50 points for the strange old American for not realizing British and American vernacular are different.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:36 pm rating: +5
#29
Kyra
I actually find this one weirdly interesting, because I had the exact same problem when I spent the semester in England–I shared a university-housing flat with like ten other people, with three bathrooms between us, two of which had showers. Most of the time there weren’t any problems at all…except for the fact that the majority of the time, I’d come in to shower and find a lake on the floor. Did it come from people not toweling off? No, it was because for some reason, nobody could figure out this very basic principle: if the shower curtain hangs outside the tub/shower stall lip, it is completely useless except as a privacy screen. If the shower curtain hangs inside the tub/stall, it keeps the water in. We were all uni students; I’m not sure why this was so difficult to figure out.
Um…yeah, apparently I was more worked up over this than I thought…? I’m not this uptight, really, it was just freakin’ annoying to have water leaked all over the floor because everyone else was too dumb to understand proper shower-curtain usage.
Jun 16, 2009 at 2:11 am rating: +3
#30
mixels
Erm, England is pretty famous for its shower setups, especially in hotels and such. The WC is literally a closet. It’s not uncommon to simply shut the door and turn on the shower, not having a door, curtain, or tub to retain the water. A drain in the middle of the floor helps, but the itty bitty lonely drain will often get clogged. It’s not uncommon to find yourself standing in a few-inches deep pool of water that slowly drains over the next hour or more.
Hell, even in America in houses with huge, old style… erm… American… tubs, I’ve seen clogged drains whip up some wicked puddles. I’m really not sure how one would go about drying them. Using a towel would be a disaster. Sure, the towel would soak up a fair bit of water, but not near enough of it, and then you’d have to worry about carrying a drenched and dripping towel across a likely carpeted floor to a clothes bin. Bloody idiot, this guy is.
Jun 16, 2009 at 9:43 pm rating: +1
#31
heather
I don’t blame the guy…it absolutely pisses me off to step into a puddle of water first thing in the morning… I usually wind up screaming at my sister and it escalate from there…i’m not so passive-aggressive lol
Jun 17, 2009 at 1:04 am rating: +1
#32
Jinx
The just turn around and knock instructions, make it seem he lives in the bathroom or the closet of the bathroom. Hence knowing who’s mother does and doesn’t live there. If I saw this note, even if I wasn’t the offender, I wouldn’t shower there anymore.
Jun 19, 2009 at 12:57 am rating: 0
#33
Lisa
Yeah so all that water might be annoying, but he threw everyones food out! I had a flatmate do that before, grr! Also, if they have a problem with him, they should come and see him, but since he has a problem with them, he writes a pan note.
Also I’m Welsh and shared a flat with seven other people, either Welsh, Irish or American. The American is the only one I’ll miss, the rest were slobs, I should have left PAN notes in the kitchen
Jun 19, 2009 at 8:13 pm rating: +1
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