Showdown in the Kitchen

So last night I was suffering from what can only be described as one of the worst sinus headaches in the history of mankind.  It's much better today, but I think I should still probably take some ibuprofen just to be on the safe side.  I have a lot of friends who get migranes, and I don't know what a migrane feels like, but this was probably the sinus headache equivalent of a migrane.  It hurt my entire head to cough and though I was just laying in bed and breathing my head was pounding.

Anyway, because of the pain, and the fact that I have to get in just the right position to sleep with this head cold, I had some problems falling asleep.  I tried reading just before I went to bed, but the headache was too bad and focusing on the words and writing notes was too much.  This was at about 1:30 am.  I put a warm compress on my eyes and finally drifted off to sleep at what was probably around 2:00 am or so.  At 3:45 I was woken up by loud voices in the hallway.


As I've mentioned before, my room is directly across from the kitchen so when there are parties it's always right across from my room, but this wasn't a party.  I could actually make out who the people in the kitchen were, and none of them were actually from my floor.  This is a problem.  At least when people cook in the kitchen it's usually for people on my floor so it's understandable to a certain degree, but when you've just come back from a bar and decide to hang out in a kitchen - you should probably pick your own kitchen and not someone else's.

Who was in the kitchen, you might be asking yourselves.  Well, it was Miss Colorado (MC) along with some of her friends who were in my language course who I can't actually stand.  The two biggest offenders are an American woman who has moved to Canada and taken on Canadian citizenship, yet likes to claim that she knows everything about America - having grown up there and everything.  The other is from Ireland, and while she's not that bad, I think she just has a bad attitude.  The Canadienne howevever is quite possibly the most annoying person I have ever met, and her voice grates on my last nerve.

Anyway, after what seemed like an eternity, I considered getting up and telling them to please take it somewhere else.  But I was so tired and in pain from the headache that I couldn't bring myself to do it.  At some point I heard them call the Brazilians' names and I vaguely remember hearing their voices, but not for long and shortly thereafter the party broke up.  It however took me a while to calm my headache back down and get back to sleep.

I slept in this morning, and when I finally got out of bed to take my shower I encountered one of the Brazilians in the hallway and he asked me if the people in the kitchen had woken me up.  I said yes, and that I had just fallen asleep from a migrane (they don't have to know that it wasn't actually a migrane) and that it took me another 2 hours to fall asleep after that.  He told me who it was and that he wasn't part of it.

After I finally got dressed and went into the kitchen to eat breakfast, the Brazilians were finishing kitchen clean up and explained to me what happened, that they were not there, that they were going to talk to MC about it, and that it wasn't fair for people to use our kitchen as a public space (duh!).  The Putzmeister for the week was just about finished with all of the dishes when the other Brazilian decided it would be a good idea to go upstairs and haul MC out of her room to clean.  There were still some glasses left and she needed a talking to.  He said he didn't feel comfortable being confrontational about the situation with the kitchen, so I told him that I would do it.  I'm old and have a lot of experience being confrontational in a way that makes people feel bad for what they've done.  It's a talent I have learned from all of the strong women in my family.  (Love you Mom!)

When she finally came down to the kitchen she looked around as though there was nothing more to clean and seemed annoyed that he had asked her to come down and clean.  (Really, you're annoyed?  Seriously?)  He told her to clean the glasses and then she gave some attitude about having to put some of the dishes away in order to make space for the glasses to dry.  (Honey, the attitude is not helping to make you seem any more sympathetic.)  When she was finally done she sat down with me and the German Girlfriend (GG) of one of the Brazilians and asked us how we were doing.  I said ok and asked her how she was doing and she said she had a hangover.  I took that as my opportunity to explain about my headache, mwahahahahahaha....

I told her that I had a headache and explained the whole story to her about the night before - if you've forgotten look up at the beginning of this post. As I was telling her the story she started to look sheepish and apologetic.  Then she actually apologized and when I said it was ok, she said, "No it isn't."  (Yes folks, she admitted that she did something wrong and that what she did was not ok...I know, amazing!!)

Then I told her that since nobody from this floor was there, that next time it might be a good idea to go up to her own kitchen, since our kitchen isn't a public space - it just becomes one when there are parties for the entire building.  She admitted that she should probably have done that and apologized again. We'll see if anything comes of this.  The GG and I don't really thing her behavior will change at all, but I felt like I at least got something off my chest and the next time it happens I feel justified in getting out of bed and telling her to take it up to her own kitchen.