The House Elves

Settling in to a new place is always difficult. But it is even more difficult when you don't have anything to settle in to. So it was with considerable relief that I arrived home on Monday to discover that furniture had miraculously appeared in my apartment during the two hours that I was out.

Like the spirits that come by night they had left tantilising signs of their presence; a mallet, a screwdriver, a discarded IKEA instruction manual. A little pile of plaster on the floor beneath the coathook.

For the first time since my arrival I was grateful for my previous lack of furniture. In their haste to correct such a tremendous cock-up, DUWO had done a job-lot IKEA order. New desk, new drawers, new bin with the label still on it. New bed and new mattress, with new sheets still wrapped in plastic. Even a new fridge. The only thing that was second-hand was the stove, the previous owners grease generously splattered over the inside of the lid. I didn't mind. It was my stove now, and I loved it grease and all.

The next day I had another visit by the mysterious elves. I went to class, and when I returned a desk lamp had come from nowhere. The elves had as a trade, alas, taken back the mallet and the screwdriver. Next time it will be my firstborn.

As we speak I am still awaiting the day when they will see fit to return to me, and bring gifts of an armchair, a pillowcase and a toilet brush to further compliment my rather minimilist aesthetic. Even my firstborn would not be too high a price to pay for that armchair right now.

Settling into my newly aquired domestic bliss I decided I would do my laundry. I had been intially delighted to discover that the laundry room was right next to me, how very convenient! In subsequent weeks this delight had faded as I also discovered my corridor-mates tendency to do their laundry late at night. But at this time I had purchased some lovely new laundry liquid and was keen to use it and remove the general air of squalor that hung about my unwashed clothing pile. So I investigated the laundry room.

The first machine I put my clothes in and then tried to close the door. At this point I discovered that there was, in fact, a bicycle lock on the door in order to hold it open and prevent anyone using it. How very dutch (the bicycle lock... not the meanness of spirit). The second machine left me completely bewildered. It somehow managed to combine the inconvenient features of a top loader and a front loader, by having a front loader cylinder that you had to load from the top. The third machine was currently being used (quite a common state of affairs considering this poverty of machine-ness). The fourth machine was another peculiar top/front/loader, and I opened the lid and stared into it for about ten seconds before my mind would believe what my eyes were seeing.

Someone had gone to the toilet in it. With toilet paper too. I stared, unbelieving, until the smell hit me and brought me to my senses. I slammed the lid shut and stood, blinking at the machine for about another minute, dumbfounded.

Not all house elves are benevolent.
To what I'm certain is your relief I have chosen not to grace you with a photo.