When I first started dating this Chinese girl, I thought it would be cool. Exotic. A different culture. Maybe even a chance to eventually visit Shanghai without having to pay through the teeth to be part of some obnoxious English-language tour group or whatever. Plus I had always heard the rumors that Asian chicks like to get freaky. That sounded fun. Back then, I had the highest hopes. But that was then and this is now and the only signs of freakiness on the menu today are the items in her shopping cart.

I shudder before her basket full of chicken feet, pork floss, and, of course, bird’s nest. Actually, I never even knew that bird’s nests were edible before today, much less bird’s nests that are made out of bird spittle, so I learned something new. I kinda wish I could have learned the solo to “Crazy Train” instead, but I’ve long since learned to take the minor victories when I get them. And the major defeats, too.

Which is why I’m here in the first place. I didn’t want to be the one getting blamed for committing romanticide over a refusal to participate in stupid weekend errands, so here I stand in the preserved foods aisle watching her browse for salted duck eggs. Why is this taking so long? We’ve already been here forever but, sure, go ahead and take it slow, love, slow.

I want to leave so bad, but mine is an empty hope because we still haven’t swung by the oceanborn section of the store yet to pick out some of those fish balls that she likes so much. But on the upside, she’s looking really good in that tight black shirt and jeans. Mindlessly staring at her has always been a worthy distraction. I mean, who wouldn’t admire that dark chest of wonders?

She is my sin and so I let those indecent thoughts carry me away, like a castaway on a lonely day. I follow with glazed-over eyes fixated on her hips as the dark passions play out in the imaginaerum of my mind until my joyful little, white-night fantasy comes to a crashing halt literally when an old lady starts barking Mandarin, slaying the idiot dreamer who just stumbled into her shopping cart.

And so finally, I just give up. I stop trying and just limp along, dead to the world. Time and existence fade into nothingness like the setting of the quietly sleeping sun… and then, suddenly and without warning — she’s done! But as we round that final corner to queue up for the last ride of the day, a new nightmarish scare-tale opens its wicked arms to greet us.

As far as the eye can see are only endless lines most horrible.