A friendly African lady addressed me one day: ‘Mr Eugene, I have an issue. I just arrived a few days ago, and I can’t sleep at night. Is it possible for you to come to my room? I want to show you the problem I have.’ A few hours later, I was walking down the corridor towards her room and there she was, waiting for me with a big smile on her face. When I entered her room I saw that she had rented furnished accommodation from Idealis. She looked at me and pointed at the bed. I looked from the bed to her. I couldn’t see what she was getting at. She pointed at the bed again and I looked at it again. ‘You see? That’s my problem.’ I still had no idea what she was trying to tell me, so I asked her to explain. ‘I bought a linen package from Idealis and on the duvet cover is a big Chinese fire-breathing dragon. Sometimes when I wake up in the night, I look at my duvet cover and the moonlight is shining on those big creepy dragon eyes and I get really, really scared.
I looked at her and did my best not to laugh
I jump out of the bed, take the duvet cover and throw it into the corner of the room.’ I looked at her and did my best not to laugh. This was a problem I had never encountered before. But I could see in her eyes that she was perfectly serious. So I stifled my laughter and told her to come to the Idealis office for a new, plain linen package. ‘Thank you Mr Eugene for not laughing at me, and for solving this problem.’
Eugene van Meteren is a caretaker for the student accommodation provider Idealis. He writes about his experiences for Resource.