There's this special needs/mentally challenged/invertedly endowed/lugubriously entertaining/whatever the fuck the PC demigods are calling it this month (I'll just use "retarded") guy working in my building who worships me because I stood up for him my first year here. Some newly-made manager/fucknut wanker was just letting loose on the poor guy for stacking boxes wrong or some such bullshit, and went so far as to slap him around a bit, at which point I intervened and shoved said fucknut on his ass and told him to shut the fuck up. Long story short, the retarded guy really took a liking to me after that (I never got in trouble even though everybody in the company heard about it; the manager got shipped off to Bumfuck, Kyushu to oversee a 3-person production line for replacement AC parts a couple years ago. Ha-ha.).

Now I have a problem because my retarded friend has started expressing this affection in a physical manner - by hitting me. At first it was just a soft jab in the arm or a friendly tap on the shoulder, but homeboy must be watching Rocky movies at home or something, because he punched me in the kidney this afternoon after lunch and I doubled over, nearly crying out for my mommy.

You see, this guy's job is to move boxes of product around the factory by handlift all day long, which requires a lot of heavy lifting and the like. He is muscular and fit; the reason he didn't unload on the fucknut manager guy that day long ago, or any of the apparently numerous times before that, was not because he lacked the physical capability to do so. It is just that he frightens like a small child, and can be cowed into submission by tiny-pricked little bullies even half his size, because he is so sweet-natured. Even so, I know one day he might actually hurt me with an unluckily-placed strike. Yet I feel guilty doing anything to prevent this rite of male bonding.

The way I see this going is that one day he'll break one of my ribs while playfully socking me with that big shit-eating grin on his angelic face, and then I'll have to show him who the big dog is again. After I'm done crying, of course. I just hope nobody's around to watch me slapping a retard at work- oh, well. Life has a funny way of running things out the way they are supposed to be, and who the fuck am I to change that?

... for I will never eat sharkfin soup again.

Yesterday I was in Himeji on a business trip. After our meetings, we went to the top of Himeji castle in the miserable heat and walked our clients a fair distance to their posh hotel. We then walked to the inconveniently located and much crappier hotel that we were staying at (a pox on our financial dept.), changed out of our dripping-with-perspiration dress shirts into casual ones, and immediately headed out for Chinese food back at the client's hotel restaurant.

I was on my third small glass of beer before the food came, and had just finished my bowl of sharkfin and crab soup and a couple of light entrees when I felt the rumbling in my stomach. An ominous rumbling.

To make a long story short, I suffered from either:
A. Heatstroke
B. Dehydration
C. Food Poisoning
D. Thermal shock, or
E. All of the above

I did not make it to the restroom in time.

Cupping my hand over my mouth only resulted in directing the explosive stream of sour vomit all over my shirt and slacks. My shirtfront was covered with semi-digested bits of crab meat and black fungus from the soup, plus other sour beer-smelling detritus.

I finally made it into a stall, got lightheaded, and almost dunked my head in the toilet before I realized there was an unflushed turd in it. This made me purge even more, after flushing a few hundred times (even I cannot sink so low as to puke on another man's turd).

After I washed off my face and most of the puke off my clothes, I attempted to dry my shirt so as not to make it immediately noticeable that I had lost my cookies when I returned to the table. I fooled nobody for very long, since I turned green after smelling the greasy Chinese food again.

I excused myself before the next wave of nausea hit, weakly stumbled to the hotel lobby and hailed a cab outside. The cabbie was being a fucking cunt and seeing my still-damp shirtfront, asked if I'd been drinking. I said "what's it to you," and he threatened to stop the car and kick me out. I threatened to puke on the floor if he stopped before we reached my hotel... Thus I got back in a precarious state of stalemate.

I collapsed on the hotel bed and the world went away for a few sweet, blessed hours. I woke up before midnight feeling completely restored, and was unable to sleep again. I took a walk on the empty streets of the city, swearing off sharkfin soup and remembering the most important things in life.

With work, I am disenchanted.

The most important thing in life, at any given time, is not to be puking your guts out.