Here is a short story I thought you might enjoy:

As we all know, getting any kind of maintenance repairs performed withing the dorms is nearly impossible. Well, I think I might now know why that is.

My suitemates and I live in Dewey College, Kelly Quad. If you have ever seen the bathrooms in the suites in Dewey, you know how poorly they are set up. There are two sinks with a light above them directly to your side as you enter the room. Beside the sinks is a toilet stall- which, by the way, is a royal pain when the toilet paper runs out and you have to hang a giant five pound roll of T.P. on the coat hanger two feet above you because the dispenser is opened by keys that only the janitors have (they come once a week). After the comode, you can happen upon a shower slightly larger than a phone booth (the doorway into the shower is wider than the shower itself- I am still trying to fathom the engineering behind that). When you step in, there is an area with some room to put a shelf or whatever have you, and an area where the showerhead is. There is a light bulb above the "free area." This is a bit hard to explain, so here's a little diagram:

   _____________________________
|                               |
|                               |
|         (light) shower area   | 
|              _________________|
|              |                   |
|              |                   |
|              |          toilet   |
|              |                   |
|              |________________| 
|                |                |
|                |              l |
|                |              i |
|                |       sinks  g |
|                |              h |
|                |              t |
|______door______|______________|
 

A few weeks ago on a Thursday, the light went out in the shower area. It seems pretty obvious that if the light goes out in the shower, you can't see in the shower. I don't know about you, but I think that's a big, fat safety hazard. Now, as college students, we can be quite resourceful. I pondered changing the light on my own, but I didn't have the special screwdriver needed to remove the cover. Knowing that I pay way too much rent to change the light bulb on my own in the first place, I called Kelly Quad Office to change the bulb. Now comes the interesting part. The girl on the other end of the phone asks which bulb is out. I tell her the one in the shower. "Just the one in the shower? The one above the sink still works, though, right?" I answered hesitantly, "yes..." And just imagine what you would do when you pay over $700/month in rent and the person on the phone tells you the following: "Well, the light bulb guys only come in on Tuesday. If both lights were out, that would be considered an emergency, but since you still have one light working, you're going to have to wait. Sorry." At least she said she was sorry, as visions of drowning in a dark shower and gigantic razor knicks danced in my head.

After loads of phone tag and complaints, my roommate finally got an electrician over to change the bulb. I had left a note on the door earlier that day explaining the situation with the "light bulb guys" for my suitemates to see. The electrician saw it and liked it so much that he decided to take it to his office to hang on the wall. Apparently he can change a light bulb whenever he wants, and he showed us that the students aren't the only ones that agree that "stony brook sucks."

Hope you liked it!

Sincerely,
-cloudbreaker