I sweat through the sheets all night convinced I have Swine flu.
At 8am, I get a frantic knock on my door. For a second I think it’s my fiance from day 1 coming to apologize and whisk me to his village which doesn’t have water but is surprisingly stocked with popsicles, antibiotics, and air conditioning.
From my bed, I open the door.
It’s an older Indian woman with a gray braid and an elaborate saree.
“Bashal ladofjh ahdfkewp lkjp TOILET aslkjfd aoiuerh ndhfve,” she says.
I figure she’s going to fix the toilet. Maybe I clogged it when I puked up the banana pancake.
I wave her in and she locks herself in my bathroom.
I hear a splushering of water.
She nods on her way out. I fade back to delirious sleep.
When I finally awake later, I enter the bathroom to find a smattering of poo. On the toilet seat. Dripping down the front of the bowl. And in the sink. Yes, in the sink, thanks to the old Asian I-don’t-need-toilet-paper-because-I-use-clean-water-and-my-hand technique.
SICK!
No, I am sick. I should be leaving poo trails, not some old lady who thinks she can hike up her saree and plop one out wherever she feels regardless of the positioning of the toilet.
I thought to call the manager. But what would he do?
“Hello, I swear this poo is not mine even though I am staying alone in this room and have been really sick and had to run away from your restaurant yesterday when my bodily fluids erupted from my mouth. It belongs to this old lady who has now disappeared. Anyway, can you clean it?”
I clean up the old lady’s poo.
I don’t sleep a wink that night because I catch a big roach under a cup, and I feel dirty because it saw me change clothes.
THOUGHTS: Not only do I have to worry about sly swindlers, I have to worry about pesky pooers.