The China Chronicles

It is another Thursday evening here in China. Last night, the electrical outlet that my refrigerator was plugged into blew a circuit so it no longer works. Plus there are burn marks on the outlets from previous tenants. I called Charlie, and he told me to stay in my "flat" (apartment) all morning tomorrow. I was like umm...I teach from 8-12 tomorrow. He said oh, you teach? I said yes, I do. After much discussion, we finally agreed that the maintenance people will be here tomorrow afternoon, hopefully. They have to be getting sick of my apartment, as they were here yesterday twice. Once to fix the light in my study (accomplished) and once to fix my bathroom drain (still doesn't work).

The reason I know that the bathroom drain still doesn't drain (well, it drains, just at a painfully slow pace) is that I showered last night. Quite the accomplishment, I know. I will proceed to explain how this shower eventually leads to the fact that I am having a really difficult time moving today. And no, I didn't fall. It's much more complicated than that.

To begin, I entered my bathroom with every intention of taking a warm shower and sitting in front of the heater so that my hair would dry before bed. While I was hanging my clothes on the door, I noticed that I had a visitor--a cockroach. Apparently I'm getting better at this cockroach business, because instead of screaming and dancing around, I merely sighed and padded back to my room for the bug spray. I sprayed the cockroach and then the drains in the bathroom. Then I watched the little sucker die. I think China is making me sadistic.

Anyway, cockroaches actually take a long time to die--several hours, and sometimes up to a couple of days. I know this because of my now-vast experience with them. I hate trying to sweep up cockroaches that are still partly alive because they flip over and start crawling again, so I left the little guy there in the corner while I showered. He was fine until I began sweeping the water toward the drain, and then he began to float. That's when I shrieked and got the heck out of the bathroom.

This morning, I sleepily wandered toward the bathroom with every intention of sweeping up the cockroach which had had a decent amount of time to die and throw it out the window. What I was not expecting was a second dead cockroach just outside the bathroom door. Upon further prodding with the dustpan, I determined that it really was fully dead, so I swept it up first. The really disturbing thing is that I can't figure out where they come from. An occasional cockroach is to be expected, but two of them make me nervous. My house is not a good place for them to procreate.

Anyway, I digress. I swept up the cockroach outside the door and then proceeded into the bathroom, ready to do battle with roach #2. Apparently cockroaches that have been wet are more difficult to sweep, so as I bent over to get it into the dustpan without having to actually touch it, I pulled something in my lower back. I now hobble around like an old woman, and I've spent a lot of time laying on the couch today.

All of this, and it's not even a good story. I mean, I've had a lot of stupid injuries. Concussion sumo wrestling with Laura, broken toe from running into the couch, jammed fingers from hitting the rail at the zoo, scars from falling off the cart on an alpine slide, but really...a pulled muscle because I was sweeping up a cockroach? Honestly. That's just ridiculous. I'm 22, for pete's sake. I am supposed to be young and indestructible! ...Or something like that. Dr. Dan, I need you!

Anyway, that's all for now. And to a certain friend, Wilma says hi and she loves you.

posted by Sara @ 3:22 AM