I live in a shared house with 3 other guys and during my morning shower I use a flannel to wash myself. The rest of the house know that its my flannel. It has its own place next to the bath. Over the past few months I'd started noticing a really odd smell coming from my flannel. So I'd wash it, and for the first few days after it would smell fine again. But after about a week and a half later the odd aroma would return. I considered the possibility that I wasn't being hygienic enough and should wash my flannel more often, and so made a point of washing it every 3 days. I also entertained the idea that the pungency of my bodily secretions was either a time-activated phenomenon or the unique result of my pairing with this flannel in particular, but after a short time both these ideas were discarded.
One morning I noticed my flannel had acquired that strange scent again but had been washed only the night before. Puzzled by what this meant I decided to open the mystery up to the guys in the house and get their opinion on the matter. My housemate (let's call him) Paddy was in the kitchen so I told him how my flannel had been producing this really odd smell over the last 2-3 months and how there didn't seem to be any pattern to when it would occur. When he heard this he burst into laughter which continued for a good while. After calming down he explained that he'd been using my flannel to wipe the underside of the toilet rim whenever it was his turn to clean the bathroom. I was incensed. I felt utterly violated by the thought of what he'd been making me do all this time. Using a flannel which I thought was only used by me and washing my face each day with it which was actually defiled with fecal bacteria and who knows what else.... A horribly deep and cutting feeling of foolishness suddenly shot through me.
As a full appreciation of the situation was dawning and my self-disgust manifesting itself fully, Paddy turned to me and through his laughter called me a "filthy cunt" for continuing to use the soiled flannel despite the weird smell.
My rage at this point became white hot, so much so that I had to just get out of that space at once. I took a time-out in my room and swore to myself that retribution would, in due course, be paid in full, and that it wouldn't be of the immediate or rushed variety, but of the carefully considered and planned kind...
