I’ve got a few of these, and I’m not even going to attempt to put them all in chronological order.
I think it was about First Week when the third toilet in the latrine started backing up every time it got flushed… We were fortunate in that there wasn’t anything coming up but water, so there were no grogans lying about. At least twice a day there’d be water on the floor, meaning more work for the latrine crew and more reasons for us to be put on our collective face for the infamous slow-count pushups.
There had to be a solution to this. We couldn’t post anything on the door. Nobody would own to flushing the toilet. Hell, it could’ve been the TI himself flushing it. There was only two options: Fix the toilet, or spend a lot more time cleaning the latrine. It was only a matter of time before a brown banana would wind up on the floor. This john was a slot machine with a foul jackpot, just waiting for the lucky trainee to pull the handle.
I went into the latrine one night to find the Dorm Chief, Latrine Queen*, and a bunch of the latrine crew at Toilet #3. One of them had a wire hanger. The rest were gathered around, looking apprehensive.
“What’cha doin’ with that hanger?” I ask.
“We’re going to try and unplug this toilet”, one of them answers.
I see what’s going on here. We all know what has to be done, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty.
It’s time to take one for the team.
I take the hanger, remove the brown cardboard bit, and unbend it. It was a bit short, not longer than about two and a half feet, but it would have to do. I enter the stall and confront the crapper. Steeling myself, I put the wire into the water and push it into the exit hole.
No resistance. I push it in a little farther. Nothing. My hand is about two inches above the water. Nothing hits the hanger, there are no nasty bits bobbing up from those unknown depths. This calls for drastic measures.
I push the wire in as far as I possibly can, soaking my arm up to the elbow in john-water. But still nothing resists, still nothing floats. I twist it around a bit and pull out. Clean water, clean hanger.
I did what I could. Now is the moment of truth.
I pulled the handle.
The water swirled, gurgled, and left the bowl.
There was no overflow, no visitors from the deep coming up to say hello. A perfect flush.
A cheer arose from the crowd as I threw away the hanger and went to wash my arm of any invisible nasties. Then I walked proudly to my toilet, to take what must be the proudest dump of my young life since I learned to do it in the right place the first time.
More tales to come.