People I is wants to smack…

Some time ago I wrote about a guy I wanted to "smack upside the head" while I was eating dinner. Well, I guess it's "that time again," because I would now officially like to "vent" about two zipperheads––or, at least, two people who exhibited ricoculously zipperheaderish behavior––I recently had to deal with.

First, two nights ago, when I got to the gym, I found the changing room door was locked. I rattled the knob and knocked on the door, but no one responded. So I asked the owner, who came over to open it. Noticing a bag hanging on the other side of the opaque window, he knocked a few times, but still no one replied. So he used a NT$10 coin to unlock the knob and there stood, or rather hunched, a man in a white T-shirt and black shirts, attempting to don one running shoe. He looked up at us as if we had just, well, walked in on him in his own shower. The owner knew him, waved pleasantries and walked away. I verged on the door but the huncher stood to sniff, "I'm changing!" I replied, with an intentionally dumb look on my face and an intentionally thick husk in my Chinese, "Wuhl, I figgered you'd be a-changin' back in the other rooms ther––", but the huncher cut me off to say, "Just give me one minute. I'm changing. One minute. Thank you!" It didn't help that his voice seemed to be coming through a narrow rubber tube, or maybe was just coming out of a helium-huffing session. And so I deconverged, closed the door, stepped away and waited, sadly like a guy holding his lady's purse at the changing-stall area. A trainer at the pullup/cable rack said I could go in the women's changing room, but this was like telling me I could also get a complimentary pink sports bra to wear for the next month if I did use it. Just as I darkened the frame of that already dark room, the huncher emerged, erect now, and strode to the ski machine.

How I wanted to palm-strike him in the forehead.

Then, last night, a friend of mine told me not to write Chinese comments on a friend's blog, since "it's really unfair to those of us who can't read Chinese without Google translate." I had one word for him: "Uhhh." Let's follow the logic here: I've been in Taiwan about 7 years now; he's been here nearly 6. I can speak, read, and write Mandarin at a high-intermediate or low-advanced level; he cannot produce or comprehend Chinese at any higher a level than ordering breakfast or muttering dirty words. The friend on whose blog we were writing is Taiwanese and Chinese, the author's mother tongue. My comments were directed to the blogger, not to my friend. Further, he can use Google translate or some other software. He can even install Dr. Eye and read right along with his cursor!

And so, just as Cupid's bow is notched to send love flying forth into the hearts of the lucky, the Codgitator's elbow was notched with the hope of sending a palm-smack through our computer screens onto the guy's forehead.

And then there's my cat, Cheetoh. Enough with the "meow-meowing" already, don't you have anything else to say! (Oh, who am I kidding? Come here, Cheetoh, and give me a clawful little slash in the face for old times' sake.)

Fear not. The Codge abides.