Thread by @davidenrich

Anyone in the mood for a ridiculous story? I am.

It’s not about Covid or @DeutscheBank or Trump. It's definitely not investigative journalism!

It’s a little rude and pretty embarrassing, but I want to tell it now because I could use an amusing diversion.

Maybe you could, too.

The story takes place in Tuscany in the fall of 2011.

I was working for @WSJ in London, covering European banks. The continent was engulfed in a raging financial crisis.

The world's oldest bank – Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472 – was among those unraveling.

MPS, as it’s known, was doomed by reckless mismanagement and toxic derivatives, some from @DeutscheBank. (Of course there’s a Deutsche connection!)

It sounded enticing. So a colleague and I went to Siena, the ancient Italian hill town, to interview MPS executives and others.

For many years, MPS had been one of Italy's leading banks and a pillar of the Tuscan economy.

We arrived at its headquarters, in an old palace. Marble hallways. Ornate furniture. Medieval and Renaissance masterpieces. A library filled with old bank ledgers and other artifacts.

My colleague and I sat down in a cavernous room to do the interview. It was me, my colleague and a few MPS executives/aides.

It didn’t go well. We asked unpleasant questions, and the MPS guys seemed to think we were rude Americans (gasp!). The language barrier didn’t help.

The interview ended. Escorting us out, the MPS team led us down a series of stone hallways. Our interview had soured the mood. Nobody spoke.

Before we left, there was something I needed to do: go to the bathroom.

I'd felt it coming for a couple of hours. I could no longer wait.

Someone directed me through a narrow passage to a closet-sized bathroom. The irritated MPS executives (and my colleague) waited in the main corridor.

I felt a little self-conscious about keeping the group waiting, but some things should not be rushed. So I took my time.

When I was done, I went to flush the toilet...but there was no handle, no lever, no chain. I was baffled. I'd lived in Europe for a while and had encountered plenty of weird old toilets, but this one stumped me.

Lounging in the bowl, my handiwork seemed to silently mock me.

I washed my hands and considered my limited options. I made up my mind to flee, to leave my mess behind for someone to discover. What choice did I have?

Then I saw it: Dangling from the ceiling was a thin rope with a small knob attached to the end. Mystery solved. Phew.

I pulled the rope, expecting the toilet to flush.

Instead, an ear-splitting siren: WEEE-OOOH WEEE-OOOH WEEE-OOOH!!! What had I done?!

From the hall: muffled voices and the clacking of heels on the stone floor.

I felt panic swelling up inside of me.

I realized, of course, that I had pulled an alarm, not a flusher. The footsteps approached the bathroom. I took one last look at the toilet, hoping I would suddenly see how to flush it. I didn't.

Someone rapped on the door. I opened it. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman entered.

She spoke quickly in Italian. I couldn't understand. I said something like, "I tried to flush it.”

The woman looked at me like I was nuts. Then she grimaced. She had caught a whiff. She must have seen what was lurking in the toilet. I was mortified.

The alarm kept blaring.

In one graceful motion, the woman went to the dirty toilet, stuck her foot underneath and appeared to give it a kick. The toilet flushed. She walked out the door.

I looked: She had stepped on a small metal pedal below the toilet. That, I saw, was how the stupid thing flushed.

I shuffled down the passageway. I rejoined the group just as the woman was excitedly speaking to her colleagues in Italian. I didn't know her words, but I got their meaning.

The executives looked at me and laughed, hard.

There was nothing for me to say. I felt myself blushing.

My colleague and I finally exited into a stone courtyard.

We went to a café to discuss what we'd learned in the interview. She was far too polite to mention the scene I'd just caused. (For the record, had the roles been reversed, I'm sure I would've been *merciless.*)

We later wrote this article: wsj.com/articles/SB100…

MPS soon collapsed. One of the executives we'd interviewed was sentenced to jail.

But ever since, the thing that has stuck with me was how I set off an alarm in a palace and needed help flushing the toilet.

**THE END**