Learn English with Teacher Joe

 I decided to add some excitement to my life in Beijing. I went shopping. For vegetables. The truly hilarious thing is, I actually bought some. Carrots. Nice color. I could sit and look at that pretty orange color all day. (Has my work exhausted me this much or has it just rendered me brain-dead?) I used to buy carrots in the supermarket. Just passing by the veggie section on my way to the fat aisle, I would pick up a few dead plants, so that I could appear vaguely healthy to other shoppers. They didn’t take any extra effort to buy, so who could blame me? And sometimes I even ate what I bought! Take that, meat eaters! In the nearby market, on the other hand, buying veggies can be a full-time job. You have to compare prices first. How much are these? Can you make it “one dot cheaper”? Are you trying to cheat a poor, lonely, down-on-his-luck foreigner? (Don’t ask me how to say that in Chinese, you just have to fake it.) Next, you have to go through the long, difficult selection process. These are a bit too thick. Those look more yellow than orange. These ones look more fresh, but those ones are closer to the door in case I need to make a quick escape. When you finally make your choice, you then have to give the veggies a physical check-up. Get up on the scale, let’s see how much you weigh. Do some quick calculations, check the vendor’s math, reach deep into your pockets for the 11 cents, and be on your way. So it took all day, and cost me an arm and a leg, so what? Now I am the proud owner of three carrots. No wait, two carrots, I just ate one while typing this. The point is, I’m happy with my day’s work, and that’s all that counts, right?