brainylady

Last! Day! Last! Day!

It's my last day in the office. Words cannot express my joy.

Thanks for your sympathy for my ankle scrape! I'd like to take this opportunity to address a few of your comments and questions.

1. Dude! Is that your first "scooter blood"?! Yes, Terri, it is. I've never even had a parking ticket here, let alone an accident. The fact that it's my last week here, and that this little accident involved only me and a wall, makes it all the more painful.

2. Is your brilliant use of a maxipad a stinging indictment of society's taboos concerning menstruation, or just a makeshift bandage? Thank you for noticing, Mindy. It was indeed a stinging indictment (heavy on the stinging part).

3. Thank you, Mia, for your professional opinion and for diagnosing my ankle as a priority 3 patient. I'm sure you're remarkably good at your job, but clearly this is a priority 1 emergency. Here I am thirty-six hours post-scrape, and my ankle looks like a cross-section of raw sausage. I am considering a skin graft.

4. Goodness! Will you wear the Pad to your last day at work? My mother will be relieved to know that I bought proper gauze last night. I did, however, wear a pantyliner to work yesterday. It was no match for my, uh, heavy flow, and I had one disgusting sock by the end of the day. (Kim, your capitalization of Pad is a nice touch, elevating an ordinary object to the status of a proper noun -- like that gardening tool advertised on TV: the Claw.)

5. How'd you get it to stay on? Well, Ms. Strizz, I simply applied the Pad to the Wounded Area, peeled off the paper backing to expose its adhesive strip, and carefully pulled a sock up over the whole thing. Stuck to the inside of my sock, the Pad stayed in place perfectly.

6. What the heck were you doing scraping against a wall on a scooter, anyway? Are you kind of spastic? Mariko, you have to learn to just come out and say what you mean. Anyway, I was hoping to avoid the question of how this happened, but here goes: In Taipei, you usually park your scooter on the sidewalk (forcing pedestrians to walk in the street). I was leaving the place where I had parked, and I had to drive a block on the sidewalk, in the narrow space between the row of parked scooters and the concrete wall, to get to an opening where I could get onto the street. And I got a leetle too close to the wall at one point. Basically, it was a foot sandwich, between a slice of concrete and a slice of scooter.

OK, much to everyone's relief, I'm sure, I'm going to change the subject. Many months ago (maybe a year?), I promised photos of a Taipei subway station. I had written about how nice and clean they are, and how they have flashing lights on the floor that indicate a train is approaching, as well as arrows on the floor that show where the doors will be. I even went and took some photos. For some reason, I never posted them.

But ~Jo~ didn't forget! She wants to see those arrows and flashing lights! Here's a shot especially for Jo, of a train arriving at the station:



And here's another shot, especially for my fellow Grammar Avengers:



Did I mention today is my last day in my windowless office? The office to which I have to bring my own toilet paper? The office at which I lose an hour's pay if I'm a minute late? It's! My! Last! DAY!