Don't be alarmed!

“How long is a piece of string?” I don’t care! I have never worried about the length of a piece of string. Perhaps I would be worried if I did rock climbing but I don’t. A more prudent and much better question is “What the hell is the string for?”

So, it is the first morning of a lovely holiday in the beautiful Hotel Falisia, near the city of Trieste in Italy, and I go for a shower. Not because I want to but for the obvious reason that chubby people sweat in warm climates, so I have to.

Some hotels have fancy showers with multiple shower heads and taps for running a bath. I am usually good at working out how these plumbing masterpieces function……….usually. Our suite had such a fancy shower, in a very modern and stylish Italian bathroom. This one even had a very long piece of string hanging down beside the main shower piping on the wall. In the UK this is often used to start up the power on a power shower or, and this what I thought this might be for, was to start the extractor fan, which had not come on when I turned on the bathroom lights. So I tugged it and nothing happened. So I tugged it again………..and again. No fan, no noise, no nothing. It must be broken. “Bloody hell”, I thought, “You pay all this money for fancy hotels and things don’t work. Wait until I get hold of the manager!”

Little did I know but alarms were now sounding and lights were flashing in the living area of our suite. My poor wife Else had no idea what it was, let alone how to switch off the loud noise and flashing lights. Then, the hotel security is calling on the room telephone demanding to know if everything is ok. Else had no idea what was wrong or why the alarm bells were ringing.

Meanwhile, I’m the alarmed one. I have not worked out how the fancy shower works and the overhead rainforest showerhead has just deluged freezing water onto me. Everything shrivels, EVERYTHING! And I would have cursed but I couldn’t breathe. So I pull the string again hoping it will turn on the hot water heater……or something.

Again, flashing lights and alarms are stressing Else and the hotel security. Reassured by Else, the security eventually kill the alarm.

Eventually I finish my shower and return to the living area. Else, still somewhat in a state of excitement begins to tell me about the alarms and flashing lights. Obviously, I suddenly realise the long string is for people who take a fall whilst showering and need assistance. I could have denied everything and pretended to not know why all the alarms were going off………so I did.