lucky
This past weekend I went to Southern Taiwan (Tainan) with my mom for her 30-something year college reunion. It has literally been 30 years since she’s seen her college friends (no mini-reunions in between). Seeing her interact with her classmates served as an inspiring example of how extremely feasible it is to keep in touch with the people that I’ve met so far, no matter when they graduate, or how far away we’ll all be from each other in the future. It was actually really cute to witness this phenomenon firsthand. I’ve never seen my mom smile this much before haha.
On the way back from this 3-day excursion, as I was sitting on the Taiwanese High Speed Railroad, I decided to break out my laptop and play some NBA 2k11 to pass the time. As I was cherry picking and averaging 12 points every 12 minute quarter, I felt a weird sensation on my foot that developed into pain. Thinking it was a cramp, I was going to go and bend my foot in various ways hoping to relax the muscle, when the pain intensified to the point where it felt like I got cleated by a 300 pounder. Looking down I see a giant BLACK THING and I’m getting freaked out now, thinking it’s a spider (I have self diagnosed mild arachnophobia). I close my eyes and concentrate on shaking my leg, hoping this black thing will get off my foot. I look down again and there’s nothing. My mom looks at my foot closely and pulls out this needle shaped thing. I am still really confused at this point as I have no idea what in the world just happened. I do know one thing though. There is a black thing that was on my foot that is not there anymore. Thus, by the power of deduction, I reason that it is somewhere around and my mom and I decide to look for it. Finally, my mom notices this thing dying on the floor next to her seat and she realizes it’s a bee. A FREAKING BEE. I have never before been stung by a bee playing Ultimate in the Spring nor frolicking in meadows as a kid. The first time I get stung is not where I’ve lived the past 19 years of my life, but in a foreign country, on a high speed railroad. I don’t know why but I just found that pretty ridiculous when I thought about it. What’s worse is that because it’s a foreign country, there’s a higher probability that it’s poisonous and thus I was genuinely scared for 5 minutes. My mom, on the other hand, was freaking out, calling for the station nurse, and asking for the train’s insurance policy, in case my foot walks into any problems.
I’m such a lucky person.
