No, Calvin I don't need your help

Monday I was super-excited all day because we were leaving the office to go out for Margaritas and Fajitas with the UNC alumni in Beijing. The restaurant is apparently new, and supposedly has really good food. Plus, on Mondays the fajitas and margaritas are half-off.

We left the office at 5:30, but since the dinner wasn’t supposed to start until 7, Zach suggested we go to this DVD shop he found in a book. He has apparently been talking to this guy upstairs, so Calvin offered to give us directions. I thought that directions would include a map, but apparently for Calvin, this included a personal tour. He left the office to do this, which I have yet to figure out. I thought he was supposed to be WORKING while he was at work.

When we got off the bus where this supposed DVD shop was, we had to walk about 6 blocks, up through a construction entrance into a store called “Tom’s Embroidery,” which was in fact, “Tom’s DVDs.” The tiny store was packed and filled with westerners stocking up on the cheap DVDs (they were 10 RMB per disc, so a 5 disc set of Big Love was 50 RMB, or about 7 bucks). According to Calvin, this was expensive, so we will have to return without him, if he will stop following us around.

From the DVD shop, we were just going to take a cab, but the eager beaver insisted on taking us on the bus. The whole way there, he kept saying “And, after dinner, you will return to work?” to which I responded nicely the first time, and not so nicely after, “No, we are not going to come back, we have already worked eight hours today.” When we got to Sanlitun, on bar street, we had to walk up and down because Calvin did not actually know where the restaurant was, and he took my phone, which had the directions, in Chinese (thank you Chinanative.com) and kept asking store keepers. As with all of my other experiences, the store keepers had no idea where the Saddle Cantina was, nor did they care to help at all, so we trudged (in the pouring rain, I might add) up and down alleys. When we finally found it, Calvin said he would meet us back at the restaurant after dinner (To which I said, shouldn’t you be at work? And, we’re meeting our friends, Calvin; we don’t need you to come get us, but thanks anyway.)

Calvin showed up early for work today to have lunch with us (his shift starts at 3, but we eat lunch at noon). He has also offered to take us antique shopping and to be our personal tour guide in Xi’an in two weeks. Calvin has never been to Xi’an and I imagine that he will try to show us the Terra Cotta Warriors the same way he tried to take us to the Saddle Cantina, jumping through puddles and sliding out of our shoes, while he motors ahead and talks in Mandarin to people who are clearly as clueless as he is.

I fear now that Calvin will come to all lunches and I will have to think of more creative excuses as to why I don’t need his particular assistance. Or I will have to leave Zach to his own devices and eat lunch with the rest of the HR department.