Saturday 10th June, 2017                         2030

What a shit day.

I decided rather than leave the cigar run to next week, I would go today to the biggest China Tobacco store in the city, the place that didn’t have quite enough for my needs last month but which I thought may have replenished stocks by now.

After two stops the bus was full but I had my old person seat. A chap got on, must have been about four feet tall and wearing an orange matching ensemble. He had a brief chat to the driver but never actually paid his 1y fare. By that I assumed perhaps he was a fellow driver.

He stood towards the front of the bus for a while but I caught him staring at me on several occasions, which as you may imagine, rather annoyed me and I stared back equally as hard. Two more stops and he was compelled to move further back as yet more passengers embarked.

No prizes for guessing where he fetched up. Leaning with one hand on the seat back in front of me and the other on my seat back. Ok, the way some of the drivers jerk the bus around, personally I would need to lash myself to a stanchion to keep my footing but this guy was maybe late twenties. It’s fine keeping a handhold but did I really need to have his stomach an inch from my face? The bus wasn’t THAT full.

My personal space is important to me, as I suspect it is to many reading this. So I indicated he should move back a bit because I didn’t particularly like being crowded. He looked at me without expression and then I guessed why he probably hadn’t paid. He was on day release from an asylum.

I was then treated to half an hour of him leaning in with his head an inch away from my face while he inspected and picked at a scabby wound on one of his fingers. No amount of elbowing him in the stomach or telling him where to go had any effect. As one of few foreigners in a Chinese city the chances of remaining undetected for a crime (how many laowei have a belly as big as mine?) are slim but the temptation was there to draw out my pocket knife and slice off the offending finger just so he had something to really concern himself with. Nothing I did or said had any effect and I will be honest and say that I seriously considered grabbing his scrotum to pass on a message. Thankfully, eventually he got off but the idea is now in my head to buy a small aerosol to carry if I can find one with noxious contents.  Of course I could buy stink bombs online but then I would be left retching along with the rest of the bus.

Well actually I secretly thought I was to be disappointed in the cigar department and in that, I was not disappointed. Mayo.

Great, I travelled for an hour in weekend traffic on a bus for nothing. Pissed off, I hopped on another bus to the train station so as to guarantee a seat on the way back. Spying another China Tobacco shop about five minutes walk from the station terminus I went in hope of finding what I wanted. Mayo. Oh yes, plenty of cigars half the size and twice the price but not my cheapos.

I consoled myself by having a chicken curry in Dicos and I need to stop doing that. It really is substandard. Then empty handed I set off back. I needed my usual medicines and stopped at the chemist in the square.

Now, when you are going to a pharmacy where nobody speaks each others’ language, it can be difficult. I know that. I am not stupid. Well sometimes I am not. So I had left home armed with the paperwork that is inside every box of medicine for which I needed replacements - all in Chinese. Good thinking, huh?

My assistant took a look at the first one I gave her. The first thing I asked her for was aspirin (no handout sheet for that) and I know by now I need to ask for “aspillin”. so far so good. Next was the sheet for allopurinol (gout prevention) and that flummoxed her. It also stymied many of the other assistants and I was pointing out that the sheet came from a box I bought from THEM a month ago!

Eventually, after many tingbudongs and mayos I went behind the counter to look for myself. I had five more medicines to buy and didn’t have all week. This prompted a young girl to come and confront me for having the temerity to go into a restricted area. I pointed at the silly salesgirl and indicated all she could say was tingbudong and showed her my paper.

Immediately she located it and got it for me. Wait! Here are the rest! She got everything I wanted and at the end I gave Mrs Tingbudong the paperwork to dispose of. At least now I know which girl to seek help from next time.

So I am still left with a 5 day supply of cigars, which means on Monday I have to hope that the China Tobacco near the teaching campus has now got a supply. If they have I may well buy two months worth but I won’t hold my breath.