NationStates Jolt Archive


It's official: I'm a complete idiot!

Demented Hamsters
05-08-2006, 19:14
So anyway, today I get up late (I'm on holiday so why bother getting up before the crack of noon?), mooch around the house, head to the local cafe for a ginger mocha (bloody delish btw), then catch the ferry into Central HK and hit the gym.
Good workout, though a little short cause I'd promised the friend of my ex-g/f I'd help her move. I'd bought some furniture off her last week dead-cheap (a nice long futon couch thingy which is just what I've been looking for) and my helping her move was part of the agreed price.
So I head over there and help with the packing and moving and crap. Quite a lot of stuff, but all nice and easy - everything already packed when I get there, we're on the 2nd floor right opposite the lift.

So far so good.

We then head over the harbour to her new place in MongKok. Where I find it's on the 8th floor and there's no lift.
No lift.
So everyone is standing around arguing about how to get the stuff up. My thinking is, "Fastest way is to bloody well start and get it over and done with!" and start hauling the boxes and bags and dressers and books up.
By the time I'm on my nineth trip the others (3 guys who's van she had paid for the move + 2 male friends & a female friend who had agreed to help) finally decide that my course of action's the best and finally start to help shift stuff.
I end up doing 17 trips up and down those bloody stairs (142 steps each way - yes I did count), carrying over 1/2 the total load.
By the end I'm totally soaked in sweat and completely knackered.
I have a quick shower and change (luckily I foresaw that it might get sweaty and took a change of clothing).
Workmen leave and everyone is getting ready to go have dinner. I excuse myself cause I'm buggered and if I miss the next ferry home, I'd have to wait over an hour for the next one after that.

On the subway home, I decide that I really need a cold beer over catching the first ferry home and start trying to txt friends to see if anyone's out. No replies so I resign myself to an early and boring Saturday night and the fact no-one likes me.

Anyway, there I am sitting there and the young, quite attractive woman sitting next to me suddenly asks me where I'm from. I tell her NZ and return the question. She informs me she's from Beijing, that she's here on holiday, this is her first time in Hong Kong and that she's trying to find a particular building, The Landmark.
Having heard of the building but having no idea where it is, I tell her that I can't help her but there are maps on the Subway walls near the exits that would show it.
Just as I'm saying this, the train pulls into the final stop. Without thinking - just from reflex due to having got off here hundreds of times over the past couple of years, I automatically stand up.
Which just makes it look like I'm totally completely uninterested in helping her at all.
Basically it makes me look like a fucking rude asshole.
ie. Our conversation boiled down to this:
"Can you help me?"
"No. Look at a fucking map" (stands up and walks off)

(okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but it may as well been)

As I get up the escalator it finally dawns on my poor tired brain just what an opportunity I'm missing and so I wait for her at the top to apologise for my brusqueness and to personally show her the map and offer to be her guide for the night - mainly towards a local bar where I can have my well-deserved cold beer in the company of a young woman.
(And let's face it, why would a woman travelling on her own, in a city like Hong Kong, on Saturday night, engage in conversation with a stranger on a train except wanting some companionship and company. And maybe a little something else.
Wait. I mean a BIG something else. Honestly. It's huge. Massive.)

She comes out the other exit way down the other end of the station.

Man, did I fuck that up!


Then to top it off, while I'm on the ferry home I have the idea to call the helpline and check my phone's balance (I'm on prepay). It's zero, which is why no-one was calling me back about my txts. They didn't receive them. The phone service here is a pain - even when you have $0 on your phone, you can still 'send' txts and it tells you they've been sent. But they haven't.


So to recap, my three acts of sheer stupidity tonight were:
1. Doing nearly all the friggin' moving myself for someone I'd met just twice before while ppl who were being paid to do it as well as her friends did sod-all;

2. Not bothering to check my phone's balance before I use it;

3. Rudely ignoring a fairly attractive girl who was on her own, in town only a few days and pretty damn obviously on the lookout for some company.



Am I a fucking tool (I'm talking a complete spanner here) or what?
Farnhamia
05-08-2006, 19:17
Am I a fucking tool (I mean a complete spanner here) or what?
Yes, but the good news is, tomorrow it'll likely be someone else's turn. Have a beer.
Antikythera
05-08-2006, 19:22
yes. yes you are.
Turquoise Days
05-08-2006, 19:25
Yes, but the good news is, tomorrow it'll likely be someone else's turn. Have a beer.
Good advice, that.
Demented Hamsters
05-08-2006, 19:26
Yes, but the good news is, tomorrow it'll likely be someone else's turn. Have a beer.
Thank you. That's made me feel tonnes better.
Really it has.
Call to power
05-08-2006, 19:30
what you should of done is stayed indoors and posted on NSG
Farnhamia
05-08-2006, 19:31
what you should of done is stayed indoors and posted on NSG
Exactly.
The Aeson
05-08-2006, 19:31
Well, if I understand Karma...

You should get helped out with some work of your own...

And get insulted/rudely ignored...

I'm not sure if Karma does cell phones...
Demented Hamsters
05-08-2006, 19:33
Well, if I understand Karma...

You should get helped out with some work of your own...

And get insulted/rudely ignored...

I'm not sure if Karma does cell phones...
Maybe someone will come round to help me and while here call me on the phone and swear at me, then leave.
New Stalinberg
05-08-2006, 19:33
Ouch.
Potarius
05-08-2006, 19:35
Toss yourself into Hong Kong Harbour for being such a dork.
Drunk commies deleted
05-08-2006, 19:38
Shit happens. You'll be allright. I've done way dumber things and had much worse days than that in the past. At least you didn't finish up the day in the emergency room or a holding cell in a police station.
Demented Hamsters
05-08-2006, 19:38
Toss yourself into Hong Kong Harbour for being such a dork.
I wouldn't last more than a minute due to the pollution. I've seen dead rats in Victoria Harbour ('Hong Kong' means 'Fragrant Harbour' incidently. irony).

Thank you for your support and kindness, btw. I appreciate it.

Truthfully though, it's no more than I deserve.

Arghhhhh!! I'm a spaz sometimes.
Demented Hamsters
05-08-2006, 19:39
Shit happens. You'll be allright. I've done way dumber things and had much worse days than that in the past. At least you didn't finish up the day in the emergency room or a holding cell in a police station.
Ohh.. I've done dumber and had worse days.
I'm just kicking myself at what an idiot I was tonight.
There's a big difference between being dumb and being an idiot.
Eon8
05-08-2006, 20:12
Wow, complete and total spoon.