As a fifth-year senior, I’m pretty accustomed to what goes on the first day back on campus. The parking lots are filled with students and parents unloading boxes and suitcases and saying their good-byes. Friends greet each other for the first time afer summer break.

My moving-in experience was very similar. My dad helped me move in and I was greeted by several friends that I hadn’t seen since the previous year.

I walked into my new apartment and I was greeted by two new roommates, along with new furniture and carpet.

I had been really excited to move into Washington Apartments once I heard they were getting remodeled. The bathroom and kitchen were completely re-done, and the carpet and furniture looked really nice.

I was so pleased that I was even willing to ignore all the machinery and piles of debris that made it difficult to park in the back lot. Little did I know, however, that this was just the beginning.

Exhausted from moving in, I decided to take a long, luxurious shower before I got ready for the Stand Around. I walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower and nothing came out.

Feeling stupid, I tried it again and still no water. I called for my roommate, Kayte, and with an embarrassed smile, asked her to try and turn on the shower. Still nothing. Panicking, we called maintenance.

Thirty minutes later, a maintenance man, let’s just call him “Joe”, showed up and I explained the situation. Joe walked right into the bathroom. A minute later he walked out and says the shower was working fine.

“What?” I said, slightly exasperated. “I’m not crazy. The shower wasn’t working twenty minutes ago.”

“Well” said Joe, who was indeed looking at me like I was crazy, “It’s working now.”

I then mentioned to him that the faucet in the kitchen had really low pressure. This is when Joe finally decided to tell me that maintenance had been having problems with the water pressure in Washington and Colonial all day and there was nothing he could do about it.

“What?” I said in a slightly demanding tone. “What do you mean there is nothing you can do about it? Fix it. I need to take a shower.”

Hey, if you hadn’t taken a shower all day and wanted to get ready, you would be pissed, too.

As Joe left, he said, “We’re trying to fix the problem, Miss. Hopefully the problem will be fixed in the next hour or so.”

So I waited an hour and tried to take another shower. The water was working. I was thrilled until the water turned off for good halfway through my shower. My roommate had to help me wash out my hair in the bathroom sink with bottled water.

I know a lot of other people had similar situations to me and I just want to say, I feel for you.

Several football players actually had to walk back to the locker rooms to take showers because the showers in their apartments were not working.

I have to say that this wasn’t a very good start to the year. I really think Simpson dropped the ball with this one. Washington and Colonial had on-again, off-again water for three-or-four days. That’s a long time.

Frankly, at the time I would have rather had running water than new carpet. I am appreciative of the re-model of Washington, but Simpson had all summer to fix the kinks, figure out the water problem and remove all of the debris and machinery out of the back parking lot.

We pay an ungodly amount of money to go to Simpson. The least that we should expect from them is running water.