Day Four

A man stared at me for 30 minutes straight on the train this morning. I tried staring back to shame him into looking away but keeping a straight face was too challenging. In the end someone blocked his view with their SMH but to my amazement he hobbled and shifted around until his right eye appeared in the gap between the edge of the paper and the adjacent passenger's shoulder. Impressive effort.

Work was easy peasy Japaneesy today and my shift was short. The only challenge was deciphering John's list of Blackmores stock. John is both a doctor and a pharmacist, so he both produces and interprets abysmally messy handwriting. It's like having his very own language.

Today I came across an item on the list that vaguely resembled "mother hen". It turned out to be "hair, skin and nails".

I felt okay today, but John still seemed to think I was mimimumu. My words not his. After checking my wrists he declared I still had sad puppydoggy eyes. He and Mirjana then started discussing whether they should buy me something.

We should give her a gift voucher, said Mirjana. She likes bags, said John. Let's buy her a designer bag. I was standing there listening, half amused and half afraid that they might be serious.

No, I'm fine, don't buy me anything, I opened my mouth to say. Except somehow the words got lost along the way and "how about a Macbook Air" came out.