Oh No He Didn’t!

My cousin Angie came to visit.  Angie and I aren’t blood relatives.  She’s actually Jason’s cousin.  It would come as no surprise to anyone that Angie and I aren’t related because she’s good at math and sports and I’m not.  She’s so good at math and sports that she has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and she was an All-American volleyball player in college.  When I was in high school I was into drama, debate and choir.  And I have a very impressive Bachelor’s Degree in humanities.  Yep, she was cool in high school and college and I was a debate/humanities nerd.  That’s how you can tell we’re not blood related.

But for the past few days I have been seen on the streets of Taipei with the cool math/sports girl.  I have finally arrived.  (Yea me!)

So today Angie and I were driving down the street in Neihu.  We stopped at a big intersection where a man was selling flowers on the street.  Like math and sports, I’m not particularly good at flower identification, but I love to buy these white aromatic flowers that are frequently sold at intersections throughout Taipei.  Three or four flowers are strung on a thin piece of wire which are sold for $10-$20NT ($.30-$.60US).  I hang them on my rearview mirror.  Then for about two days my car smells like a nameless white aromatic flower.  It makes me happy.  (Yea me!)

So after I stopped at the intersection, I rolled down my window and handed the man two silver coins and he handed me my wired flowers.  But then he said something I couldn’t understand and pointed at the center console of my car.  I had no idea what he wanted, but Angie picked up a 3/4 drunk plastic water bottle that was lying on the console and handed it to him.  It was obviously what he was asking for because he happily took it and walked off.  I thought he must have wanted to water his flowers, but when I watched him walking away through my flower-laced rearview mirror to my horror he (I can hardly say it) was drinking the last few swallows from the water bottle.

Ewwww!