Shoeless in Beijing
I was working@home a couple of Fridays back, and took Leo out for a late morning walk. Somewhere around 10:30 or so. Was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and my pair of crocs.
I brought him into the apartment, put down my wallet and keys on the counter, took of my shoes, and unhooked him from his chain. The routine is usually that I say "chair", he jumps up onto one, I clean his paws, give him a treat, and then I go back to working in the office.
Well, on this particular Friday, he decided it would be nice to visit my neighbor instead of going up on the chair. So, he ran out my open door, and into my neighbor's apartment (I've seen that many folks in Beijing leave their apartment doors open during the summer... good for airflow and really not that much crime to be concerned about). I followed him in laughing and apologizing (my neighbors are kinda used to this by now... they take care of Leo when I'm not in town and *love* him).
Just before we managed to corral him, I heard the slam of my apartment door closing. Or, more precisely, the slam of my apartment five-locks-immediately-engaged-good-luck-breaking-in-if-you've-forgotten-your-keys-inside door close.
So, there I was, shoeless, keyless, and mobile-phone-less, with only a t-shirt, shorts, and Leo to my name. And, I'm not going to even get into my horrible understanding of Chinese. Oh, to make matters more fun, I had a meeting at work scheduled about an hour later.
Anyways, a very nice (South) Korean-owned pet store had opened recently in the downstairs of my apartment building. I've found that most South Korean shop owners tend to be trilingual... Chinese, Korean, and English. Leo was due for a wash, so I dropped him off there. One problem down...
Alrighty, I paced around a bit and thought about the next step. I mean, I could do the Amy Winehouse thing and walk into work. A thirty-minute barefoot jaunt wouldn't bother me that much. And, well, folks already look at me strangely sometimes anyway. The only thing that gave me pause was inside of the building. And, geez, having to pound on the door of the building to get someone's attention so they could let me in. Nope, that wouldn't be fun.
I returned to the pet shop, explained as best as I could about what happened, and asked if I could borrow a few RMB to buy some slippers. Instead, they were kind enough to give me those owned by the co-owner of the shop. A little tight, but definitely wearable. Many, many, many thanks.
So, to make an already way too long story short, I walked to work, got into the office, called a friend who had a spare key, finished my meetings, walked home, got Leo, and that was that.
