Comfort food

I'm listening to ANRlive on live365.com. They're playing in Sail by AWOL NATION. This has nothing to do with my topic. I just happen to love this song. The story behind it also inspires me. Whenever I think I ought to get with the program and do X, I remember that sometimes fooling around with Y isn't bad. Moving on.

I sucked down six Wal-mart deli counter chicken wings and six of their potato wedges. The food Wal-mart sells at the deli-counter has but one flavor (never mind what the label says) and that's extra, extra salty. Which is saying a lot of you've ever had KFC chicken.

Of course, before I left these grand United States I didn't realize how salty our food is, especially for someone who loves TV dinners, soggy hamburgers, cold fries and anything fried... yum! Foodie, I am not. However, even I usually don't have the constitution for Wally World deli food. Today was an exception because some @#%^!A!!!!!! stole my GPS. Last night I had a lot of groceries and, arms loaded, I didn't lock my doors. Since, the remaining items included water and Coke Zero (10 times awesomer than diet Coke, just so we're clear) I didn't go back outside until I realized I'd forgotten to bring in the milk.

Anyway, this little theft threw my entire day out of whack, so much so that I needed serious comfort food-- food so salty that it'll burn sores in the roof of my mouth. The fact that was fried... even better!

Later, after I'd scarfed down this junk, I realized I was having a serious over reaction to the GPS. I'd gotten it on sole over Christmas for $69.00. While this is certainly not a small amount of money, in the greater scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. Imagine if I'd left my laptop in my car for those two hours? My life is on this computer.

Well, the truth is I didn't care that much for my GPS. It didn't even have traffic alerts! (I'm being facetious here, in case that's not clear.) No, I was upset about the assault to my sense of "safe" about the neighborhood. This security was hard won. Korea is perhaps the safest country in the world. Don't get me wrong, theft happens, but its not common.

To explain clearly what I mean, I think we need a scenario:

Your are in New York. You are so inspired by the city so you settle at a coffee shop and set to writing the best story ever. You get into your grove. A few hours pass. You want another coffee. Also you have to pee. You're alone but you're not worried. It's New York after all. Who would take your laptop?

I can't count how many times I left my laptop and bag to go get a cup of coffee or use the toilet. I don't remember when I started doing this. I'm fairly certain I never left anything unattended when I first arrived. But then everybody left their stuff. And then I started doing it, at first with the expectation that eventually I'd come back and my stuff would be gone, a little voice in my head telling me I would only have myself to blame. I was asking for my stuff to get stolen.

But it NEVER happened. Not once in five years. There are a lot of social reasons for this, but also it seems that everybody had great technology. If everybody has the same pair of shoes, nobody wants to take your shoes. To some extent laptops, iPads and the similar are invisible there.

Anyway, I had to re-adapt to the United States and that meant relaxing. However, this incident reminded me that I'm not in Korea anymore. And despite my initial upset, I am grateful for the reminder to to confuse relax with outright lax. That means my computer stays with me, not in the car because, while the technology is replaceable, the content--my stories which are so full of my hopes and dreams--is not

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