Whilst at university, I was due to spend my third year in the States. However, for one reason or another I didn't make my grades, and so ended up staying in the UK. This caused an issue with my accommodation for that year; whilst all my friends had been arranging their houses, and who was living with whom, I had been sat back watching these things unfold. I did have a bit of a back up plan - some friends of friends had two vacancies in their house, but by the time I had finally got in touch with them (before email and Facebook this was a very fiddly process) they had already filled the rooms. At least that's what they told me.

So, this is how I found myself, a few days before term was due to start, in the Students' Union scanning the notice boards looking for someone wanting a flatmate. There wasn't an awful lot left, it was a few days before term was due to start, and most other people were sorted by now.

However, there was one, and when I went to see it the actual building was quite amazingly good, it was only a few minutes walk to lectures, and had recently been refurbished to a standard way higher than your usual student accommodation. However, the incumbents and I were destined never to be great drinking buddies, having a tendency to take life too seriously and find even the most irrelevant things too important for my liking. There was a couple, Helen (whose parents owned the house) and Mike who had decided to move into the house together, and find extra housemates to fill the remaining two rooms. Helen was a Grade A worrier, every little detail was important and she seemed to think that good communication involved using 3,000 words where seven would do. I may be being a little unfair on Mike, but he did exhibit some weaslesque qualities. Anyway, The first room had already been filled by another girl, Clara, who was very much, "The World revolves around me," type, a particular character trait I find rather nauseating. However, needs must, and I moved my stuff in and got settled in.

The housemates certainly lived up to expectations - excitement in organising a trip to the cinema a week in advance being typical of the level of excitement in that house. However, after a week or so Mike and Helen split up. Fortunately, this split was so civilised, that I didn't notice and I had to be told. Things seemed reasonably civilised, and carried on this way until one Friday evening/Saturday morning.

Helen had gone out for the evening, and, during the course of the evening, had got on particularly well with some chap, so much so that she had decided to bring him home with her. Also, that evening, Mike had gone round to a friend's for a few drinks, and was wandering home, pretty much the worse for wear. As he got home he could see that in Helen's bedroom, which was in the basement at the front of the house, the light was on, so he pottered down the stairs from the pavement to her window to knock and give her a little wave. Needless to say, Mike wasn't overly impressed when he saw this chap in Helen's room. "You bitch, you whore!" he shouted as he stormed back up the stairs into the house.

This situation probably wasn't ideal for Helen or her new found friend, who promptly made his excuses and departed. Helen then proceeded to get a little over excited about the situation - linking what was going on to how whenever someone in a film had gone off shouting in such a way that he was on his way to get a knife in order to stab the target of his feelings. This was a little over the top, although Mike wasn't quite finished yet. Instead of going to bed, or fetching a knife from the kitchen with which to wish Helen goodnight, he decided to sit in the lounge, and brood on what he had seen very, very thoroughly. Eventually, at about 4 am, he decided that the best course of action would be to call Helen's parents. And explain to them the full details of the whole sordid affair. And then continue on to explain that he could now fully understand the reasons for crimes of passion.

Unsurprisingly enough, Helen's parents were more than a bit concerned with the situation, and decided to postpone their weekend away until after they had visited their daughter and put a lock on her door. By the time they arrived Mike had forgotten about the entire incident, having no recollection of it whatsoever.

The first I heard of this sorry tale was when Helen came into my room that Saturday morning to tell me the story and hopefully get some sympathy. Of course as she told me the story I couldn't help but see how funny it was, and started chuckling, before I realised just how upset Helen was (she had genuinely believed that Mike had been on his way to fetch a large knife from the kitchen before coming down to wish her goodnight) so realised that I had to put on my serious face. After being disturbed on a Saturday morning I did very well to manage to extend my sympathy to a, "Oooo... That sounds awful."

After things had calmed down a bit and everyone had got things into perspective the others said that it was good that someone had seen the funny side straight away. However, this begs the question - what other side was there to see?