Got Milk?
As with most well-brought-up, middle class Southerners, my first flat share experience was in a halls of residence. Specifically, Sundial Court at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It was a pretty insane place - you'd hear violinists feverishly practising virtuosic concertos until 2 in the morning whilst ambulances pulled up outside to cart brass players off to have their stomachs pumped. Singers would return from a night out on the lash, stand in the middle of the courtyard and sing Dancing in the Moonlight in four-part harmony, to be greeted by instrumentalists leaning out of their windows in their pyjamas swearing and throwing things at them. God only knows what I was doing there - I was one of the sane ones, believe it or not.

Anyway, I was sharing a flat with four other instrumentalists. An English pianist called Dan and his French cellist girlfriend Fabienne, whom I once caught having sex on the kitchen table. A Ukranian bassoonist called Dragan, with a penchant for staying in his room all day playing The Flight of the Bumblebee (on the bassoon! Mental!) emerging only to make Pot Noodles. And a Bulgarian cellist called Sasha who didn't speak English, but seemed very nice.

Now, I'm not a tidy person. If you were to walk into my office you'd know which desk was mine - the one groaning under a ton of six-month-old press releases and mouldy tea mugs. What I'm trying to say is, when I tell you that my flatmates were the most filthy bunch of porcine cretins I have ever come across, that statement is not coming from some obsessively tidy girly girl. Our kitchen was a public health hazard. I was the only person who ever did any washing up, took the rubbish out or indeed took any steps whatsoever to render our communal living area inhabitable.

One day, I came back from a weekend away to discover that somebody had spilled some milk in the bottom of the fridge. It was starting to congeal. My first instinct was to clean it up, but then I thought, no. No, I am not going to clean up someone else's congealed milk. It was a decision I would live to regret.

A few days later, it had turned green. One had to hold one's breath when opening the fridge door. A couple of weeks after that, the entire kitchen reeked of it. As the end of term drew near, the entire flat smelled like death. The milk had turned a lurid green colour reminiscent of the manner in which radioactive substances are portrayed in comic strips. On the plus side, I got loads of work done because I was spending so much time in practice rooms and in the library just to escape the smell.

In the end, my mum cleaned the fridge when she came to visit. Thanks mum :)
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 7 Apr 2007, 7:03, Reply)