An embarrassing truth

I just figured out an embarrassing truth. I woke up with an enormous hangover/nausea today, Sunday, my first babbelas in a long time, but I think it was more the rich food (German eisbein and sausages, etc) that I pigged out on which was delivered to our home last night.

My wife, Marion, went off to teach a lesson as she does every Sunday morning and I lay stark naked on the bed in the Shanghai humidity in our 22nd floor apartment. I was bilious, head throbbing, bum aimed at the open bedroom door, groaning occasionally from both ends, cursing the rich food, slowly concluding it was the food and not so much the vodka. At some point I heard the kitchen doorbell ring and ignored it. My friends always just call my name, and Sundays are when the gas and water meter inspectors — always but always women — come and check how much we have used. I was certainly not in the mood for launching into the spectacularly athletic efforts required to find a pair of shorts and then lurching through to the kitchen. The only thing slightly unusual is that the doorbell only rang twice. Usually the Chinese ring it over and over and over as if there was a fricken air raid or an emergency evacuation. I was just relieved it was only rung twice. Eventually I rose. The kitchen is just after a very short passageway in our shoebox of an apartment. Oops, I thought, as I stood there, scratching my belly and downing a pint of fridge water. The kitchen door had been left wide open. Marion could not have closed it properly.

It gradually occurred to me that if you stood in the kitchen doorway — and, embarrassing truth, someone had — you can see straight into our bedroom and my large, pale backside would have been as obvious as the nose on your face. (Hmmm … perhaps not an apt image.) No wonder the door bell was only rung twice followed by complete silence instead of being rung twenty times along with shouts and hoots. And, as previously noted, the Sunday inspectors have always but always been women … ahem. Dear editors, should I post this blog? Dare I?? What about my carefully constructed literary image?