(So here is an out of time note. I am now writing from the USA. Hurray! However, the difference in time has made things weird for me and how the blog is scheduled. In China it was published on Friday and Monday, but now in the US that translates to Thursday and Sunday. Meh. Things will now be published Monday And Friday, 10am Eastern. Why? Because this blog is me-centric. And now back to your regularly scheduled shitposting)

Hey Dad,

I leave China tomorrow. Couldn’t be happier. Two years was well beyond my limit.

I’ll write to you more when I get to ******** house in Portland, but for right now I am mostly just writing to give you some bad news. You had asked me to pick you up some Tai-chi shoes while I was here. Well, I failed at the task. Forgive me. It was not my fault.

As always when I need something here I start by asking my colleagues about it. I asked about a shoes store that sold these kinds of shoes. And of course, my colleagues  told that there were no stores that sold them anywhere, and that I could only find them online. I doubt this, but what do I know. I argued that this wouldn’t work, that I wanted to see the shoes first, that I didn’t trust buying things online.

Don’t worry they said. Everything will be fine they said. Just tell me exactly what you need. If they are wrong you can send them back.

And so I repeated your needs. Verbatim from your email to me. This was months ago.

They found something online and showed me. I asked a couple of question and it seemed alright. So they ordered it and I waited.

Or course it never came. After a while the manufacturer contacted them and cancelled the order fro some fucking reason. So they found other, more expensive shoes. I agreed.

They arrived today. Of course, they are everything you didn’t want. Polyester shoes with rubber soles. Cheap looking too boot. Of course, I had already paid for the fucking things. Was there an offer to refund me the money? No. And it is too late to do anything about it.

And these morons don’t understand why I am not happy about it.

Every reason I gave about not wanting to order them online came to fruition. If only someone had listened.

All the best,