This is part of a true story that took place in my first year at a university in England.
Spread out around one end of the leafy campus were large residential halls for first year students, ranging from older grey-stone buildings with period architechture to modern red-brick eyesores that had seemingly been knocked up cheaply to meet demand. I'd been allocated a place in one of the latter; in fact it was clearly one of the worst of the lot. Once you'd passed the lobby and basic communal areas it was just floor-upon-floor of long straight corridors lined with box-like one-bed-one-desk rooms, and it was all in need of a bit of maintenance and redecorating.
I'd arrived there as a very socially anxious eighteen year old. Without ever really being the instigator of any social activity, I'd nevertheless managed to go with the flow and attend all the early parties and other events, and settled into a group of friends from neighbouring rooms. Despite this I remained more-or-less of the same disposition, and a girlfriend or even quick flings weren't really on my horizon. I plodded along, fulfilling the basic requirements of socialising and my course, and along the way I did have a lot of enjoyable and memorable times and friendships.
Like most students we were accustomed to either go out every night or otherwise be up most of the night doing something or other, and so with very few taught hours per week and most of my time meant to be taken up with personal studies I soon got into a stereotypical student sleep pattern.
When I did finally retire to my room I would invariably look at Internet porn and masturbate before going to sleep. I remember being paranoid about looking at porn as my Internet connection was the university network, and I'd read over-and-over the section of the guidebook that warned about the consequences of using the network for filesharing or pornography. If I ever had to go to the computer centre and speak to a technician, or even meet with my personal tutor, I always had a nervous feeling that they'd know. Nothing ever happened though, and everyone must've been doing the same.
So back to the start...
It was a couple of weeks in and I was lying in bed in the late morning; not snoozing lazily but suffering with an awful, room-spinning hangover. Suddenly I panicked as there was a quick double-knock on the door of my room and the door was unlocked and the handle turned.
"I hope you're decent... I'm coming in" barked a regional accent.
Increased panic. The door was cautiously only opened an inch for second or two, before a uniformed woman opened it fully and leaned into the room.
"Do you want your room cleanin'?".
OK, so it was some cleaning thing that no one had told me about.
Feeling exposed and embarrassed I sat up halfway and blurted out "I'm really sorry, I'm unwell".
"If you don't want it cleanin' you have to sign this" she said in a bored tone, thrusting a clipboard into the room.
"Hang on, I'll just get up and throw something on", I mumbled nervously, "It'll literally take a sec".
"Don't worry, you're the fourth one just down this corridor" she said in a markedly more friendly way, and tossed the clipboard onto the end of the bed. "I like your duvet cover", she added.
"Thanks", I replied, getting up into a kneeling position on the end of the bed with the covers still over me, and stretching to hand the signed sheet back to her.
"It'll have to be done next time though", she warned, reverting back to the bored tone, and then shut the door and hammered on the next one.
I was pretty much up now anyway, so I felt a bit stupid not having my room cleaned. I lay there for a while listening to the annoying sounds of hoovers and the cleaning women and her colleagues yapping away loudly about their bad husbands and an unflushed turd in the communal bathroom at the end of the hall. I was relieved though, and I felt like the woman had been quite nice and sympathetic, and that perhaps she sensed I was a bit timid.
The next week I forgot it was that day again already, but as soon as I heard their racket down the end of the hall I was up and off to breakfast to get out of the way. I spent a while there to make sure my room would've been done before I went back, but still returned just after the same cleaner from before had just come out of my room.
"Are you going in? I'll leave it unlocked." she said, and quickly moved on.
I still didn't really take in what she looked like, other than that she was an older woman.
As I got ready to go and study, again I listened to the same din of hoovers and doors and the cleaners' loud chatter. This time they were mocking some of the things they'd seen in "this one's" or "that one's" room without caring if "this one" or "that one" was in earshot. It made me smile a few times.
The third time started like the first. I was just half-awake when the door opened again, with the same dialogue. I was fine this time but said I was unwell again just because it sounded better than "yeah I just haven't got up". Maybe she thought I wasn't up to signing the form, or she just couldn't leave it again, but this time it wasn't offered.
"I won't hoover but I'll do you surfaces and bin, OK?"