Davide

Suddenly, the front door telecom chirped out a loud, tinny version of "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" to let me know someone was downstairs buzzing to come up. Joyful, joyful for me- it was David, the metro computer guy/ inventor of Chinese cake, gracing me with his presence to install Microsoft Office on my computer. "Hello Janet I am David Chan! Open the door!"

Wearing ironed khaki pants, a crisp white collared shirt, and polished black leather shoes, David delicately stepped into my apartment, apologizing profusely for walking inside without taking off his shoes, but at the same time demonstrating no intention to remove them. He interrogated me for a few minutes: Have you learned to cook for yourself yet? Does your mom cook for you at home? Do you drink a whole water bottle every day? Then it was down to business (David is very professional). After shoving in the bootleg Office CD and a few rapid clicks on my computer, David informed me, "This copy is a fake. Everything is a copy in China. It is no good. I come back tomorrow."

We joked around for a few minutes; he giggled a lot and called me "Crazy Janet" repeatedly. When I showed him the hammock I'd bought at the store to hang on the back porch, David immediately seized it, hung it up across the middle of the living room, suggested that I have Scott get in to test it out... and with that, the whirlwind that is David was out the door.