Got the Time Wrong

Yesterday, the pollution was gone.  The sky was back.  I knew I had to meet someone at Starbucks at 1:00PM.  So at 10:30AM I got on my bike and threw on some Alman Brothers and sang aloud like a fool, to “Every Hungry Woman” riding along Yu Yang road, avoiding cars, avoiding car doors.  If I can break a sweat biking over to the gym there is no need to climb imaginary stairs and I can concentrate on weights.

Had my hoodie off and my wallet out of my pocket and I heard the brief but unavoidable sound of my music drop in volume to suggest a message had come and then another.  “Are you meeting her or what?”  Huh?  “I’m supposed to be there at 1:00”   I typed back, en route over to the first machine.  “She’s there now.”  I checked the message trail.  Someone had come all the way out my suburban Beijing neighborhood to meet me . . . at 11:00AM, not 1:00PM.

Wistfully, I threw my hoodie back on plodded back down the stairs having accomplished nothing at the gym. “Sorry.  Got the time wrong.  I’ll be there in fifteen.”  I typed out before hopping back on my bike.  I’d have to take this first meeting with a potential research assistant in shorts and a hoodie.  It also occurred to me that I didn’t have a lock for my bike.  Leaving my bike at the school without a lock is never an issue but at the local mall would be a different matter. 

I decided to put my bike up against the window and took the seat out of its shaft to bring with me.  The meeting was fine.  I hadn’t expected the person’s English to be as good as it was.  I introduced a number of different projects I was working on.  Every so often I’d glanced over behind my shoulder of the window to make sure that that the bike was still standing there.   I looked once and twice and then relaxed into the conversation.   Finishing up, I turned to see the bike was gone. With no explanation to my guest I bolted out of the Starbucks and asked a few workers who were there who’d taken my bike.  The first and the second guy gave me blank stares but the third guy said it was the guard who’d taken it and he pointed to the parking lot.  I marched over and the guard confirmed that yes, he had taken it from the window and put it over by the bike rack.  It was there.   I returned, trying to calm myself down and explained myself to this young person. 

Monday 10/30/17