An intern's confession

One day, during my first week of my internship, I decided to succumb to my unpaid lifestyle and brought a can of soup with me to work. It was just a generic can of country vegetable soup (I had also decided to eat healthily). When lunch time came around, I made the soup in the swanky office kitchen (and believe me, the kitchen is bee-yoo-tee-ful). Once the soup was finished, I sat down to enjoy it.

But the soup was disgusting. Absolutely, wholly disgusting.

I decided to get rid of the gross soup and run downstairs to get a sandwich. Rather than throw the soup in the trash, I thought it would be wiser to get rid of it via garbage disposal.

So down, down, down into the disposal the soup and its gross chunks of veggies went. I turned on the water and flipped on the switch to the disposal…

It didn't work.

I tried it again; it still didn't work. I began running through the kitchen frantically hitting each switch, praying to the intern gods at least one of them operated the disposal. However, my prayers were unanswered.

I hovered over the sink and peered into the disposal at the soup. I couldn't just let it stay there; it would surely start to stink within moments. Everyone at the office knew I had brought soup (because I loudly proclaimed, "Well I'm a poor intern, I might as well eat like one," in a lame attempt at being witty) and would thereby know it was I who stunk up the kitchen.

It was then that I remembered that there is a button under disposals. Perhaps this might be the solution, I thought to myself. I got down on the floor, went halfway into the cupboard and under the sink. To my relief, I spotted a button immediately. I was saved! The intern gods had surely answered my prayer!

However, the button did nothing. I decided to scoop the gross soup out with a spoon and just throw it in the trash. I then left to go get a sandwich in the busy cafeteria.

When I got back to the office 20 minutes later, I walked into the kitchen, where I was greeted by three of my mag's staffers and two men from our building's custodial staff. The kitchen floor was completely covered in water.

"What happened?" I asked nervously. This was it, I thought. I'm about to be fired and I've only been here two days.

"We have no idea! We think it was the ice maker," one of the staffers said.

"But that makes no sense," another interrupted. "It looks like it came from the sink, not the ice maker. This is so weird."

I nervously walked away without saying anything. The custodians drained the kitchen and cleaned up the mess.

I have not touched the sink since.

—Ed’s Intern #3