A few friends and I had bought tickets to go to Paris, or rather, K's mom had bought tickets for all of us at a group discount, and we sent her checks for the amount. We were going to stay in K's parents' apartment in the first arrondissement, so all I had to cover was the price of airfare, entertainment and food. I discovered that working the maximum permitted hours as "dorm crew" would get me close to my cash goal.
The work was tiresome but not horrid. At least I knew exactly what was asked of me. The day I started, a student captain led me in an orientation by way of test-clean. He showed me the supply closets in the dorm to which I was assigned. Each crew member got a mop, a broom, a dustpan, a caddy of chemicals, and rubber gloves. "Don't stick your arm in the toilet past the end of the glove," my guide advised. He said I should clean the toilet first, and then, because we weren't given buckets, I should mix floor soap into the toilet bowl and use the toilet water to clean the floor. The other tasks were applying chemical spray to the mirror, the sink, and the tub, and wiping it off a few seconds later.
I was then handed a skeleton key to the dorm. I would knock on doors first, but most of the time the students weren't in their rooms, so I walked through their dimly lit bedrooms to their filthy, corroded bathrooms. It was finals, and their rooms stunk. Some boys and girls lived in squalor, different kinds, often differentiated by gender. The boys were just neglectful, letting their pubic hair affix in yellow puddles on their toilets. In contrast, the girls expressed their dirtiness through accretion, through gummy rings underneath each of dozens of tubes, bottles, tubs, and cannisters of scented unguent, each of which would have to be pushed aside before the sink could be cleaned, and replaced after. I didn't have a music player so I cleaned in silence. It was January in Boston, and my walks to and from the dorm were made under cold gray skies.
By the end of the week, I had made what I needed. We went to Paris and had a grand old time. We walked down the Champs-Elysees and through Versailles and ate fresh baguettes every morning and deep-fried mashed potato balls every evening. We drank nine franc wine and sprawled on the beds in the apartment, and I developed a quasi-platonic ache for the person who would become my third girlfriend. Except for K, we interacted very rarely with real live French people, my first such attempt resulting in having a fruit vendor slap my hand - literally slap my hand - away from her peaches. "Touche pas!" she said. K said I had been tutoyered.
I didn't think to check my bank account until much later in the spring. It was only then that I learned that K's mom had never cashed the check I sent her for the price of the ticket. I never brought it up with her but wish I had, to thank her for the wonderful week of experiences she made possible.
The work was tiresome but not horrid. At least I knew exactly what was asked of me. The day I started, a student captain led me in an orientation by way of test-clean. He showed me the supply closets in the dorm to which I was assigned. Each crew member got a mop, a broom, a dustpan, a caddy of chemicals, and rubber gloves. "Don't stick your arm in the toilet past the end of the glove," my guide advised. He said I should clean the toilet first, and then, because we weren't given buckets, I should mix floor soap into the toilet bowl and use the toilet water to clean the floor. The other tasks were applying chemical spray to the mirror, the sink, and the tub, and wiping it off a few seconds later.
I was then handed a skeleton key to the dorm. I would knock on doors first, but most of the time the students weren't in their rooms, so I walked through their dimly lit bedrooms to their filthy, corroded bathrooms. It was finals, and their rooms stunk. Some boys and girls lived in squalor, different kinds, often differentiated by gender. The boys were just neglectful, letting their pubic hair affix in yellow puddles on their toilets. In contrast, the girls expressed their dirtiness through accretion, through gummy rings underneath each of dozens of tubes, bottles, tubs, and cannisters of scented unguent, each of which would have to be pushed aside before the sink could be cleaned, and replaced after. I didn't have a music player so I cleaned in silence. It was January in Boston, and my walks to and from the dorm were made under cold gray skies.
By the end of the week, I had made what I needed. We went to Paris and had a grand old time. We walked down the Champs-Elysees and through Versailles and ate fresh baguettes every morning and deep-fried mashed potato balls every evening. We drank nine franc wine and sprawled on the beds in the apartment, and I developed a quasi-platonic ache for the person who would become my third girlfriend. Except for K, we interacted very rarely with real live French people, my first such attempt resulting in having a fruit vendor slap my hand - literally slap my hand - away from her peaches. "Touche pas!" she said. K said I had been tutoyered.
I didn't think to check my bank account until much later in the spring. It was only then that I learned that K's mom had never cashed the check I sent her for the price of the ticket. I never brought it up with her but wish I had, to thank her for the wonderful week of experiences she made possible.
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