One winter day
by The Flamingo
Zürich, Sunday morning, two weeks before Christmas, two years ago.
It was a blustery day outside. The wind and the snow made the cold feel even worse than it was. I had one more weekend before Christmas to get everything done. We had just moved into the new house the week before, it was all just an awful mess that needed sorting. These were the circumstances, when I got the “clever” idea to go Christmas shopping alone, through the blizzard.
I left my husband and son in the warm comfort of the house and took the train to the city center, by the lake, where the most beautiful Christmas fair in Zürich was. After enjoying my new found freedom for like half an hour (I hadn’t been anywhere without my three year old hanging around my neck for a few months now), I decided to get things done and stop gawking at all the things I didn’t need, but wanted anyway.
I had presents for the family on my shopping list, tree ornaments and the request of my husband craving ramen for lunch. Half an hour later, I had in one hand a big bag of presents and two medium bags with Christmas ornaments and in the other a big wooden measurement board for kids. Wonder why the 1.5m long measurement board? Well…because it was beautifully handcrafted from Swiss wood…which is, I heard, a very appreciated thing to have in one’s house, especially a child’s room…(Swiss wood being way superior to any other wood in the whole world, because it’s Swiss and made of gold).
The wind blew stronger, while I was waiting in line at the Japanese food cart, trying to decide if it was a good idea to buy two bowls of ramen and carry them the long way back. I was debating with myself how disappointed my husband would be, if I came home without the ramen, and how my secret identity is actually Wonder Woman who can do it all…and before I knew it, I had blurted out the dooming words to the Asian guy taking my order: “one pork ramen and one vegetarian ramen to go” (of course in my “perfect” Swiss German).
“I can do it” …I kept telling myself. After I paid, I watched the guy preparing the ramen, thinking that my train was due to leave the nearby station in 15 minutes, so I was running late. After 5 minutes, observing the guy meticulously preparing the vegetables, it hit me… “please tell me you have covers for the bowls!” He looked at me surprised and said “of course not”. What? Come on, it’s a food cart for crying out loud, people take their food to go. Well, what I found out that day is that what the Swiss mean by “to go”, is just standing and eating a few feet from the food cart or wandering with the ramen through the crowds while slurping the noodles. “Well, I’m not eating soup with chopsticks standing with a thousand paper bags in the snow”. I want to take the ramen home, that’s what “to go” means.” The guy helpful enough wrapped them in tin foil and gave them to me in a shoe bag…because that was the only bag they had, of course. “This is a very bad idea”, I thought taking the bag with my free hand.
Why didn’t I give the ramen back, you wonder? I honestly don’t know, maybe I was overtired and couldn’t think straight, or I was ashamed after the work the guy put into preparing my ramen to ask for the money back or maybe I was just plain stupid. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter. The result was me balancing myself through the snow and sharp wind with one hand full of three bags and a 1.50 m measurement board and the other with two heavy bowls of ramen soup covered just by tin foil. “Yeah”…I thought, “this is totally like myself. I do this all the time, carrying more than I can handle, whenever I go shopping. I always end up like this, always overestimate myself. The real Wonder Woman would laugh in my face right now saying what a pathetic excuse for a superhero I am.”
By the time I reached the train station, I was shivering either from the cold or the heavy weight, or both, I couldn’t keep my bowls straight anymore. When I looked up at the clock, I realised I was 5 minutes late and my train had left already. The moment it dawned on me that I had to wait for another 25 minutes standing in the cold, with no bench in sight, shivering like I had Parkinson, with all the heavy bags on top of it all, I wanted to throw myself like my toddler on the ground and have a tantrum.
After 15 minutes of counting every second that went by, I started to smell like ramen. Of course I succeeded in spilling soup on my jacket and my pants. I wanted to throw the food in the garbage, but I thought the worst was already done: spilled soup, lost train, frozen to my knickers and 30 francs spent on the two very overpriced “Swiss”-Japanese soups. The least I could do is get them home, pour the remaining liquid on top of my husband’s head and eat the rest of the vegetables by myself and the pork on top of that.
So the revenge on my husband was the next thing keeping me alive for the rest of my torturous waiting, like he was at fault for my string of bad decisions. Like an angel coming to rescue me from hell, so did my train pop up with perfect Swiss precision. But alas, every seat was taken, so I ended up standing squished between people for another 20 minutes with a huge German Shepherd sniffing my ramen flavored clothes and with the owner apologizing and looking confused all the way. Luckily I like dogs, so I wasn’t bothered…that much.
“10 minutes more, I can do it”, said a very unhappy, on the verge of tears, now wobbling woman through an icy rain…yeah…this was my cherry on the cake: the ice, ice in the air, ice scratching my cheeks and, worst of all, ice under my boots. When I reached for the key to unlock the door to the apartment building I began crying, because I was unable to fit the damn key in the lock. I was shivering too hard.
I opened my door and I found my husband resting cosily on the sofa in the warmth of our apartment.
What I can tell you is that, I chickened out and didn’t go through with my revenge. I was so hungry and cold I ate what remained of my soup. I stopped shivering after a couple of hours and cheered myself up by admiring the beautiful Christmas ornaments I bought.
So…the moral? There is no moral, the truth is that poor choices in general make for a good story.
Photos from Flamingo‘s archive.
