To celebrate today being my birthday, I thought I’d share a little story with you all about something that happened on my birthday four years ago. Like most stories about me, it ends in someone’s embarrassment.
Airports, ugh. So much effort arriving early, and then you have hours till you actually get to board. Long change-overs can be nasty too, especially when you are not allowed to leave the building. This was my first-world problem as I waited in Guangzhou Airport on my way home from Japan to celebrate my birthday with my friends and family in Australia.
What can you do to pass the time? Play your Nintendo DS? Well, that was great until the batteries ran down. Use your laptop or phone? Same issue. Eventually I was left with a book and a notepad, and I was too sleepy to read. I started to draw.
There was a young girl sitting behind me in the gate lounge – couldn’t have been older than ten years old – who was obviously as bored as I was. In her various attempts to entertain herself, she must have noticed what I was doing, and it was apparently the most exciting thing that had happened so far that day, as she turned beaming back to her parents and told them all about it in highly animated Chinese, before looming back over the chair to watch, before updating her parents on the state of the drawing, etc. etc. etc.
Now, it must be known that I hate children. However, it was the day before my birthday, and I was free from work for two weeks, so I was in a good mood. My social anxiety affects me even with the smallest children, so I didn’t want to turn and smile at her or interact with her in any way, but I thought perhaps I’d sneakily make her a little souvenir of our unspoken comradery. After finishing my first scribble, I started on a new one: a cute little bunny rabbit.
It took a little while before I finished it. I put more effort into this one than the others – if it was going to be a present it may as well be a good one – and finished it up about ten minutes before our scheduled boarding time. All the while the little girl was leaning over the seat to watch and talking her parents step-by-step through the drawing process in the most bubbly Chinese I’d ever heard. I smiled quietly to myself. She had no idea.
Finally, it was done. I wrote the date, put my signature on it, turned around and handed it to her, smiling: “Here you go”.
The little girl’s face dropped as she stared, stunned, at me. Then, slowly, firmly, she spoke to me with a perfect British accent: “I don’t want it.”
Well. That backfired.
I kept the picture that I may never forget the lesson I learned that day: don’t be a patronising wanker.
Epilogue: The little girl made a peace offering just before boarding by offering me a mint. I politely refused. Ha ha, how do YOU like it? >:D