What Possessed Me

The Greek and the Ethiop

Last night I packed my sensible shoes, bedazzled my headlamp and swallowed my malaria pills. I’m ready to go. Perhaps I’ll get a post or two in while I’m away.



Wish me luck.

Image: Aida Muluneh

The thingy revealed

After some deliberation, I decide to meet Fauxhawk to pick up the thingy. The prospect of a thingy and a brief meet-up with Fauxhawk is just too hard to pass up.

He looks fantastic – just as he did when we first met, before Erika the Meth Head started cutting his hair. Fortunately, my heart doesn’t lurch. I am not overcome by a desire to jump him. After many months of plotting revenge, it’s a relief to feel nothing and to see him looking tan and healthy.

He is nervous. I am cool as a cucumber. I am a robot person with no feelings.

Fauxhawk hands me a beautifully wrapped present.

“Here,” he says. “I hope this will come in handy on your trip.”
I open it. It’s a guidebook with a big llama on the cover.
“But that’s a llama,” I say.
“Yeah! It’s going to be useful, right?”
“But this says ‘Ecuador.’”
“Right! So you can take it with you!”
“But I’m going to Ethiopia...”
“Yes, and when you look at the map, it shows you [points to unnamed, shaded country] that Sudan is over here, so you’ll be safe.”

It sinks in that this is vintage Fauxhawk – thoughtful and demented. But then he pulls out a small envelope. Inside is a British penny from 1887 given to him by his father.

“It’s a good luck charm,” he says.

I think I’ll need it.

And now, a thingy.

After a four-hour summit that rivaled Clinton’s Middle East peace talks at Sharm el Sheik, I received a short email of thanks from Fauxhawk, and then another. It’s been a regular bonanza of communication since we broke the vow of silence.

“Hey,” he wrote. “I have a thingy that I'd like to give you before you go on your trip. The thing is a trip-related present.”

The last time I got a post-breakup present from Fauxhawk, it was an elaborately wrapped tin of General Foods International Orange Cappuccino Surprise - an inside joke for my birthday. Too bad I’d lost my sense of humor.

Anyway, I have been instructed not to see him, but my interest is piqued. What could the thingy be?

A roll of toilet paper?
Anti-diarrheal?
Flea powder?

I would not put it past him.

Should I see him? Should I get the thingy?