I take a plane to Laos tomorrow. My time in Vietnam is dwindling, and today, for the first time in months, I drew up a “to do” list. It looked something like this.
1. Wash bike
This is the best money I’ve ever spent, ever. Thirty cents buys my bike the equivalent of a week at Canyon Ranch. Each spoke is delicately exfoliated by gentle nylon brushes. Every chain link is bathed in moisturizing cleansers and then dried with a delicate blast from an air gun. I can’t express the fetishistic glee that my bike’s newly acquired sheen inspires in me. I’m tempted to run it through some mud puddles just so I can clean it again.
2. Print photos for all the families who put me up in Vietnam
When dealing with the IT folks in foreign countries, I make a sincere effort not to get all Silicon Valley in people’s faces. Even though I used to be a highly compensated Software Professional working for a revolutionary technology start-up in the most important industrial zone in the known universe, I humbly defer to the skills of the locals. So, for example, when the internet cafe guy tells me that my habit of opening up twenty browser windows at once is slowing down the internet for everyone else, I smile politely, even though I know that he is insane. And when the cretinous mouthbreather at the digital photo lab permanently deletes 100 of my photographs with an errant click of the mouse, I just dig my nails into my thigh and curse a thousand generations of his family under my breath. Joke’s on him, anyway: I storm out without paying the dollar I owe.
3. Mail photos and postcards
Because lickable stamps haven’t yet made their way to Vietnam, trips to the post office always turn into craft projects. After I purchase my stamps, I make my way to the paste table, where I find little plates of crusty glue and some wooden dowels. In short order, all of my postcards are stuck to my hair.
4. Help a Fat Nebraskan find an internet cafe
Usually when I talk about “Fat Nebraskans,” I’m talking about the type of people that Europeans refer to as “Americans.”
This isn’t fair. I don’t know any Nebraskans. They may all be svelte urban sophisticates. There may exist an Omaha Scene that would make any black-clad New Yorker green with envy. Nebraskans may blow air kisses at one another in tony restaurants where they eat complicated food and drink distilled spirits from Northern European countries.
So today when I meet an actual fat person from Nebraska, a lady in distress no less, I am happy for the opportunity to shatter some stereotypes and also atone for my thoughtless cruelty.
She is traveling alone (one small stereotype goes pop) for 10 days (stereotype remains smugly intact) to do some missionary work with her church group (oh no). She is desperately looking for an internet cafe so that she can contact her family.
Finding an internet cafe in Hanoi is easier than, say, finding Jesus, but nevertheless I walk her to the nearest den of computer terminals. I even sit at the terminal next to her, and proceed to receive a rather graphic IM update of a friend’s sex life. I notice the missionary occasionally frowning at my screen.
Few stereotypes were shattered today.
5. Update blog
Note to self: Work in joke about how winking self-reference is trendy these days. Position Adam Stein as the Charlie Kaufman of the blog world.
6. Shop for traditional Vietnamese crafts
Namely, knock-off designer eyewear. I want to pick up some prescription shades cheap. “Very hansam,” the store clerks say no matter how ludicrous the glasses I am trying on. The whole shopping process would go a lot faster if they didn’t keep handing me frames with lots of chrome and rivets on them. I’m sure they would look great on J. Lo, but on me they look like a fashion disaster from 20 years in the future.
I immediately discover that I am a brand whore. Despite the fact that all of the frames are obviously fake; despite the fact that a new logo is only a glue gun away; I still refuse to even try on glasses that have Cyrillic writing on the earpieces (right next to where it says, “Made in Italy”). The store owner quickly picks up on this fact. “Goosey! Very nice!” he says, thrusting some “Gucci” frames at me.
I end up purchasing two pairs because they are so cheap. The first are fairly conventional, except that their fake logo is Chanel, which I think means they are for women. The second have blue lenses and will come in handy the next time I appear in an Skyy vodka ad.
7. Shop for shoes
Ah, screw it. I’m useless without a woman to provide counsel. This is why I never shop for clothes between girlfriends. Also why I’m looking fairly ratty these days.
8. Get a massage
Come on, it’s not like that. This place was vetted by a female friend of mine beforehand. I discover that Vietnamese massage technique involves a careful calibration of pleasure and pain when the masseuse walks on my back while forcing me to listen to a Westlife Live CD.
9. And so on…
