One thing I always could not wait for as a teenager was to move out of my parents’ house and move into a large house with all my friends. It was great for the first few months as it was a ‘girls only’ house with no parental rules, and no stinky little brothers. It was so fun. We would binge TV together, drink red wine, gossip about boys, and put on fashion shows. It felt like I was living in one big sisterly community. As time went on I gradually started seeing that girls were just as messy as guys, if not worse! If there’s a nail polish spill on the carpet, a makeup stain on the wall, or a fake tan stain on the couch it’s almost always a girl who is responsible. The other thing about girls is that we hate confrontation so no one would confront anyone about the mess.
I’ve always known not to throw sanitary products and makeup wipes down the toilet. For the last month, we’ve had some really bad problems with our plumbing, so we had to call a drain plumber to come over. I tried to get the other girls to help me clean before the guy came over but no one helped me. He was shocked to find out that the house was occupied only by four teenage girls because the mess looked like about ten dozen people ran through the house in a whirlwind. I was so embarrassed.
I’m not a messy person and I really didn’t want him to think I was responsible for the mess. This guy was a plumber who does drain inspections. Melbourne has many share-houses and I’m starting to believe we were the worst he’d seen. Apparently, the camera revealed that our pipes were severely backed up by a combination of hair, tissues, makeup wipes, tampons, and more. He arranged a day for our pipes to get unclogged in the next week, but sadly it wasn’t going to be a cheap experience. Trying to split the bill between us was awkward.