Chapter 361

I woke up a bit before 9, packed my stuff, and went to Boom Boom Bagels. I had a salmon and cream cheese classic, and got a pulled pork sandwich to go, at the girlfriend’s request. I’m such a good husband.

I rode to the train station and sat in the massage chair for half an hour. The waiting hall was deserted compared to usual, only then did I remember it was Monday, a normal workday. I got one day off for Christmas, and in fact, as I was sitting there getting my shoulders and back kneaded by the robot chair, my students and Chinese coworkers still had to go to school.

The train started boarding at 10:30, though it was scheduled for 10:49. I still had a few minutes left on my massage, but after the huddle of peasants finished pushing through the gates, I made my way there, not wanting to be locked out even if there are minutes remaining, bEcAuSe it’S tEh pOLiCy. I walked downstairs to the platform and saw that the train was waiting several hundreds of meters away. Why?! It’s a train. Scoot it over. If there’s a reason, I’m either too smart or too stupid to understand it.

In the train, a rent-a-cop asked for my passport. He seemed to acknowledge my excuse for being maskless (eating raspberries) and also controlled a few people in the carriage who did have their face diapers on. Still, I put on the glass fogger for the remainder of the hour-long journey, probably the longest I’ve worn one since the plane ride in May.

I took a taxi home. The dog was stoked to see me. I ate a lunch composed of various goodies we bought in Shanghai (hummus, flat bread, salami, nuts, olives) and then took the dog out. I rode the longboard to the girlfriend’s school, got in the car, and drove to the furniture store where we commissioned them to cut a board for our camper-car. They also said they would assemble it, but of course the mouthbreathing fucktards didn’t do it, and the pieces of laminated wood were still packed in cardboard. The boss wasn’t there, I gave his minion an earful and stormed out of there, mad I just wasted over an hour. In China you can get some of the best and also some of the worst customer service.

So I went back to the girlfriend’s workplace, and rode home. At least the dog got a good long walk out of it. I then sat around a bit longer at home, editing a video I made with bits of live sets I saw over the weekend, and went to the gym. We trained various takedowns and rolled a few rounds. I took a knee to the balls and had to walk it off, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often, given the chaotic nature of the sport and how clumsy I am. Then I went home, and met the girlfriend in the underground car park. She went to the furniture store and got those champions to assemble our shit like they were supposed to, and now we’re moving closer to our goal. Here’s to hoping we can make a nice road trip during the winter vacation, and that some Covid-related stupid shenanigans don’t come and cockblock us.

I ate a big dinner of canned fish and various leftovers, and went to bed.