Light From Under the Door

Martin had to get with the flow as far as the social aspects of his job went. This ment large to unfeasibly large amounts of fermented vegitable juice on several occassions. And from time-to-time it didn't go all that well.

The philosophy was Work Hard, Play Hard, in those days. It was something that I adopted with enthusiasm, particularly the second clause. The work then was dominated by short but well paid contracts provided by IBM and BEA, who later were bought out by Oracle. I was doing one of these contracts, in Hemmel Hempstead, I think, somewhere thereabouts anyway. The end-client was a Mobile Telephone company, as it inevitably was in those days. Whatever I was doing I finished early. And so it was pub-time.

This is not the toilet you were looking for

I've been doing this sort of boozy thing since my undergraduate days. I wasn't an alcoholic, but it was social binging on an epic scale, and, it has to be said, a necessary social skill.

You pick-up some tips and tricks associated with such ferocious boozing. Drink a pint of water before retiring, that sort of thing. A particular problem for me was finding the toilet in a strange dark hotel bedroom while still quite hammered. I therefore used to leave a light on in there to guide the exploding bladder stumble that would inevitably occur in the wee small hours after a good concrete-melting Go-Live, Redundancy or other excuse for a party-come-booze-up.

And so it was in Hemmel Hempstead. Out of the Taxi, stumble up to the bed-room a minute or two fiddling with an impossible lock until it is realised that you were using the wrong key-card, and in. Switch the toilet light on, shoes off, bed. Sod the pint of water. I'll just lie here open mouthed for a little while.

A little later, and by this time I'd managed to remove my pants and at least one sock, I felt the urgent need to micturate. Light streamed from below a closed door from the other side of the room. Good, I'd remembered to do that at least. Off I went trying not to crash into anything on the way. There was the quiet sound of a neighbour's TV, but otherwise everything was still and silent. I reached the door and went inside. You can only imagine my surprise to find my self in a corridor. There was a heavy chunk behind me, the sound of a door closing. The lights of the brightly lit corridor dazzled my dark adapted eyes. The sound of neighbour's TV murmured on. Once I'd worked out that I wasn't in the en-suite bathroom, panic started to set in. I turned and tried to open the door, but it was now locked. The key-card was in my wallet, in my trousers on the floor next to the bed.

Still quite the worse for ware, the penny slowly penny dropped. I stood there for quite little while contemplating my fate. There was nothing else that could be done, I'd have to go to reception. And so I did, somewhat sheepishly. The receptionist was a West African with an almost impenetrable accent. He looked me over with a tired seen-it-all eye. Obviously people pitching up at reception with no trousers and only one sock happens daily in Lagos. Satisfied that I was an unlikely burglar he accompanied me back to my room and opened it with a master key. My bladder was still exploding and I could hear the neigbour's TV.

A budget hotel bed and an ensuite bathroom never looked so inviting. I was a very grateful and chassened young man. Well, actually, not that young. Naturally, I resolved never to do anything that dumb again. But of course I did. There was always a next time.

Langå, 21st August 2010.

~Z~

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Gormless Anecdotes

Martin is known for his long-winded e-mails and has decided to inflict them on the Internet like this, suitably cleaned up and formatted. There's the starting page with some explanation, and then, so far:

• Hunting the Flush Bug
• Chemi-Luminescent Vim
• Helping With an Enquiry
• Light From Under the Door
• I Write Like David Foster Wallace
• The Origami Artist
• Pattern Matching Randomness
• The Indole Chemistry of Bananas
• Volunteer Projectionist

Also of Interest

Jucy morsels from the rest of the site:

• General papers on On-line Transaction Processing (OLTP). It's still the main topic of the web-site.
• Some site news; it's a sort of infrequently updated journal for Martin too.
• Rather specific Technical Notes, Martin can still bore people in the Third-person past tense.
• Of the little hacks that he's done recently, the Unofficial Jobcentre Plus Mirror is the one thing that seems to have gained traction.
• Other ephemeral, eclectic stuff. Mostly photographs.