1 day ago
7 
A layer of dark brown goo sat at the bottom of the bathtub.
The sunlight from the spring afternoon shone through the dirty window and landed on the thick crust of brown.
Along the edge of the bath, the tiles were lined with black muck – but I knew the tub was supposed to be white, and potentially shiny.
The rest of the bathroom was no better. It was filled with sticky, long forgotten detritus – cans of shaving foam and rusty razors with clogged blades. Open sarcophagi for dead insects, upended woodlice and mites, were lost in the discarded aerosol bracken.
The sink was a dry dusty bowl of caked filth, taps fused with black mould, body hair of every type clipped and strewn about like black confetti.
As I stood there, the odour settled on me: a pungent hum of unwashed underwear, sour damp towels, reminding me of the university halls I escaped in the first year.
I stood still in amazement and disgust, staring at my date’s bathroom. My stomach rolled – I had to get out.
I did not expect to be in this situation just because I’d said ‘Yes’ to a date.
It was 2023, just a few months since I’d left a bad marriage, and I had been doing some indiscriminate app swiping.
Out of the blue, I’d matched with a cheeky chap who seemed witty and intuitive and after a couple of days of chatting, we agreed on a low-pressure café date one afternoon.
We talked easily and laughed at our awkwardness – his vibe was nice. We were both creative and had similar interests; like me, he was a huge fan of sci-fi, and after coffee we strolled about town gushing about our favourite films.
He suggested grabbing food and watching Alien back at his, as we were both mega fans. I was very game.
But as soon as we reached his house, he suddenly became grave and apologetic.
He told me the place was a bit of a mess – but I had lived with guys in the past and assured him it’d be fine. Before entering, though, he paused again to tell me the house belonged to his friend, and that he only rented a room – this information, in particular, seemed very important to him.
I was taken by the hand and led through the ground floor as he quickly said: ‘Please don’t look at anything’.
But of course, I looked around me.
It was chaos. There was dust and clutter everywhere.
He rushed me into his little bedroom, with his Superman curtain, overflowing with DVDs and rogue socks I prayed were clean.
Something dropped in my stomach. I felt like it was all going a bit wrong.
I watched him frantically shove more things onto piles of other things – but instead of turning around to leave, I stayed.
The problem is, I am a people pleaser; and I was still trying to hang on to those snippets of golden conversation from earlier.
In order to see if I could turn it around, I thought I just needed a moment to take stock.
‘Can I use your loo?’, I asked abruptly, hoping it would be the escape I needed.
His face dropped and instead of answering, he disappeared into the bathroom. Confused, I waited awkwardly for ten minutes listening to banging noises.
Looking back, I should have left, but something kept me there.
Once he emerged, I rushed past his red face into the filthiest bathroom on earth.
I surveyed the scene of damp, stained towels stuffed behind the dirty radiator, the window sealed with gunk, cobwebs and body hair in stinky clumps on every surface, shower curtain mould climbing upward in scabs and that brown, crusty, bone dry bath.
I almost gagged.
The state of that bathroom told me that something was very wrong.
‘I need to get out of here,’ I said quietly, looking him in the eye.
It was rude, but surely, he understood my discomfort – he had just spent the last thirty minutes apologising and cleaning his house.
‘I’m sorry’ he muttered under his breath, a look of shame in his eyes.
He offered me a lift home. I declined at first, but accepted when he looked so deflated – I felt bad for him.
I definitely won’t make that mistake again.
Back in the car, I thanked him immediately, trying to smooth things over, but silence fell between us.
Then, suddenly irritated, he blurted: ‘What was it about the bathroom that was so bad?’
I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t form a sentence. It all felt so ridiculous.
‘Was it really that bad?’ he continued, slapping his hands on the wheel.
My heart stopped.
‘Just drop me here, I’ll walk to the bus stop, thanks.’ I must have opened the door before we’d even stopped, but I was walking away from him before I knew it, my face buried in my phone as he zipped by.
In trying to be polite, I had ignored my gut feeling. Shaken but unscathed, I was lucky.
In the end, it was the little slice of his temper that was the real red flag, not just the need for a hazmat suit in his bathroom.
But the sights and smells of that room from hell stayed with me for at least six months – and I’ll never take a clean bathroom for granted again.
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Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·