The Restless Tea Lady (茶水女工)

My friend’s recording studio is located in a building in KL. The building management hired a tea lady to take care of cleaning and odd jobs which she may be asked to do by various business tenants. These jobs also including serving tea and foods to office workers and visitors. One day the tea lady was found dead while cleaning the male toilet and rumour has it that the restless soul of this tea lady haunted the male floor ever since. Nobody likes to visit the toilet for the fear of bumping into this tea lady ghost and people would rather either use the toilet upstairs or downstairs. Of course, when it comes to answering the call of nature; it is not always possible for a person to choose a toilet of his/her choice.

One night, my friend Paul worked very late editing a last minute sound recordings for a movie in his studio. It was just passed twelve o’clock midnight, since he must send the edited recording to a customer first thing in the morning; he had to burn the midnight oil or lose his long-time customer. You know, many things could happen when a person is running short of time; and answering the call of nature is just one of those many show stoppers.

As Paul was engrossed with his work, he suddenly felt an urge to visit the toilet. And, as he hated it so much; he had to rushed to the nearest toilet or dirty his pants. So said, Paul immediately dropped everything on his hand and rushed into the male toilet on his floor. Then, he pulled down his pants and sat on the toilet bowl; and started to unload himself…

Suddenly, he heard knocking sounds on his toilet door. It was a series of rapid and hard knocks and then the voice of a lady came from the other side of the door: “Do you want some tea please?”

Paul immediately stopped what he was about to do, and he pulled up his pants; and opened the door… Surprisingly, there were no one there. He inspected all of the toilet compartments and found not a single soul…

Feeling agitated with severe stomach upset, he returned to the toilet compartment to discharge himself. Again, as soon as Paul’s all systems go; the knocking on the door started again followed: “Do you want your tea hot or cold?”

At this point, Paul couldn’t hold on to his load anymore and started the discharging process…

Receiving no answer from Paul, the knocking on the door started again: “Do you want your tea with milk or sugar?”

Now, feeling relieved, Paul opened the toilet door to see who was the culprit made fun of him and as he opened the toilet door…

Some tea leaves, sugar, milk, a tea cup, a tea spoon together with hot and cold water flew towards Paul’s face as they were being thrown by someone waiting for Paul to come out. Paul narrowly escaped the tea cup but he was hit by the rest of the stuffs flunked at him.

Feeling surprised yet angry, Paul searched every corner of the toilet but found not a single soul was around except he heard the disembodied voice lingered in the air: “I hope you have enjoyed your tea, Sir!”

Later, when I visited Paul at his place, he mentioned his strange encounter and asked my opinion. So, I told Paul: “Next time. You just said no tea for you and a thank you.”