In my second year of university, I shared a narrow five-bedroom house with four others at High Kingsdown, Bristol. It had a council housing vibe going. The walls were thin, the central heating miserly, the carpeted floorboards audibly registered every footstep, the furniture was cheap and fragile, and the tired-looking kitchenette never failed to remind me why the rent was affordable. And yet, despite such basic and functional surroundings, we had a lot of fun in and about our temporary home in the two years we stayed there.
Of the five, three were guys and two girls. One of the girls was a medic; the other did law. Of the three guys, one did economics, the other, a Singaporean, did engineering, and I did law. The rest of us were Malaysians. Four of us were from the same residence hall, Baddock, a forty-five-minute walk from where we stayed then. The one who did economics was my secondary school and college mate, who also ended up at Bristol University and stayed at another residence hall, the Hawthornes.
The nice thing about staying with the girls was that we could be assured that the house would be clean, comfortable, cost-efficient, and well-run, plus their cooking was better than mine. The less nice thing about staying with them is that they could be fussy and bossy and keep an account of everything. And though we got on well for the most part, there were from time to time those tense moments when our different upbringings would emerge so powerfully and suddenly to reveal the gulf that erupts between even old friends.
A few months into our living together, the girls called for a meeting. These were convened for important matters, which meant household matters. When done so urgently, it was understood that some decision needed to be made, with action immediately following.
“We called this meeting because we noticed that we keep having to buy toilet paper too often, especially lately. I just bought one roll last week, and now I have to buy another. It’s crazy. And we are the girls here, alright, and we don’t use that much,” said the medic.
“Yeah. We’ve checked between ourselves. And when we do the number two, we use, on average, eight sheets. So we want an audit,” said the lawyer.
They had clearly discussed and settled upon their approach before the meeting.
“Wow, isn’t this rather personal?” asked the econs.
“Oh, please. When I have to pay for it, it becomes personal to me too,” retorted the medic.
“So. As I was saying, we should keep this audit objective. We should all disclose how many sheets we use when doing number two. You go first,” the lawyer said as she motioned to the econs.
“Eight to ten for me.”
“Uhm, twenty-four,” I sheepishly admitted.
“HA! So, it’s you!” the girls cried in unison.
“Why the heck do you use so many?! Are you knitting a blanket in there, or what?” the medic roared.
“Okay, okay. Mea culpa. I am getting used to this only tissue paper thing. I was used to using water almost exclusively back home. And I want to put as many layers between me and what I am wiping without water.”
“Hello? We also had to get used to it. Can’t you use less?”
“I am not sure about that right now. It’s not like I am wantonly trying to waste it. That’s just my minimum right now.”
“Wah, that’s too much lah. If you add three of us, it’s the same as you,” said the medic.
‘Eh, you haven’t said how many you use?” the econs said to the engineer.
“Two,” he replied.
The room fell silent. We turned to look at him in quiet astonishment. It was as if some rare creature we saw in a grainy old National Geographic documentary was suddenly before us.
“What?” he asked with a shrug.
“Two, eh?” the econs remarked.
“I want to ask, but I don’t want to know,” I said.
“Well, that confirms it. The amount you use, Fahri, equals almost all our amounts! Either you reduce it to eight or ten, or you get it yourself,” said the lawyer.
“Well, it looks like this is where we part ways. I’ll get my own toilet paper then! Since I have the freedom now, I’m going to go three-ply! But we’re still sharing the other groceries, right?”
“Yah. Yah. Okay, issue settled,” the medic declared.
We met up recently after many years and reminisced about the incident. We laughed a lot about it and inevitably fell into an audit about how much we use now. Although the amount the medic, lawyer and econs used stayed the same, I used much less than before and the engineer used more than before.
It’s kind of like how we have grown since graduating from university.
Some things change, and yet some things stay the same.
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