Disaster Strikes!- Tuesday

Then, on Tuesday I was driving home from service and my bag was on the floor of my scooter, where my feet go. Now I always have to drive like this, because there's nowhere else to put the bag. And everyone else does it too. And I got to Fong Yuan and a lady pulled up to me at a stoplight and talked Chinese that I didn't understand, and I looked down and sure enough, my bag wasn't there. And it had all my literature plus my wallet and my cell phone. So I turned around and went to look for it but had not luck. Eventually she drove by again and showed me roughly where she had seen it fall off but still I didn't find it.

Eventually I went into the police station that was fortunately right across the street. I really just wanted to give them a way to contact me if someone turned it in there but it turned into a big session of guess what the foreigner's saying. I don't know what to call the kind of bag I lost so I described it, and said when I was driving my scooter it fell off, and they thought my scooter was stolen, and eventually they brought out a man who spoke English, and I tried to say as simply and slowly as I could what happened, and he said (also very slowly), "What you say, I don't understand." Eventually I drew a couple of pictures and they all got it.

I told them I already looked for it (using perfect grammar, by the way) but they wanted to take me out in the police car to look for it. And he drove out really far and I kept trying to tell him I didn't lose it here, but all I could say was "The lady who saw me said it (mime bag falling) near your place" because I don't know the word for police station. Eventually he called someone on his cell phone to tranlsate, and I talked to her and then it occured to me that we could call my cell phone, and if a nice person had found my bag they would answer it. No one answered so we kept going but later he tried again and someone did answer!

So, we went back to the station, and I kept sitting and waiting and finally I was like, "So will someone bring the bag here!" And they said, no, you have to find a friend with a car to go get it. I asked if I could drive my scooter to go get it but they said it's too far. Eventually I had them call Hess to translate and they gave me the address (in Chinese) of where the bag was. I asked the Hess person to tell me where it was but they said to just come to Hess and they would help me.

When I got to Hess, a teacher who I've never really had a problem with but she's just kind of abrupt and unfriendly, said "I'll go tomorrow morning to get it." And I said it's too much trouble, I'll do it, and she said "I think you don't know where it is. (Of course I don't; no one would tell me!) I'll get it."

And she did. So nice, huh? And everything was still in it. So lucky! She always makes coffee in this weird contraption so I went to Starbucks and got some nice coffee grounds for her.