A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Store

I was beginning to worry that nothing interesting or funny had been happening lately and I that I hadn’t been posting very much. Fortunately, China never lets me down.

Today went as any regular teaching day tends to go. Some classes were good; some classes were rowdy. Some classes had brilliant students; other classes had students who were less inclined to learn English. But none of it really mattered because I was meeting a bunch of friends for dinner at the Smart Noshery so I knew the day would turn out well in the end.

And it did.
Dinner was great, the food was amazing as usual and there was lots of hilarious conversation with recaps of the antics from Saturday night.

That would be a pretty boring story if I ended it there, eh?

Kelly and I biked home and were followed by two men who took every chance to stare and us and attempt to converse with us (they were also on their own bikes). We smiled and yelled ‘Zai Jian!’ as we turned the corner and they biked on.

The real action started when we decided to stop at the store for ice cream before going home. I pulled up my bike, got out my keys to lock it, the men selling DVDs were staring. All was a usual ice cream buying night.

Then, I felt something wet on my leg. I thought it was an air conditioner drip so I went to wipe it away but as I did I felt the texture – slimy – not your usual air conditioner drip wetness.

I immediately put my bag down and begin searching for a tissue, Kelly asked what was happening and told her I need a tissue right now. She helped me get one out of my bag and while doing so took a closer look at what was on my leg. And then she gasped. Literally, hands over her mouth, eyes wide gasping.

“Don’t freak out,” she started, “but I think someone hawked a loogie while we were biking and it landed on your leg.”

So there I stood, in the entrance of the LianHua grocery store, wiping someone else’s mucus and spittle off of my left calf and trying to not gag.

China: Never fails you for a good story.