Tonight, while I was cutting up a honeydew melon, I was reminded of another time and another melon…
When I was living in Mississippi, I had a Chinese friend, who I always referred to as “my little Chinese guy.” There was absolutely nothing offensive meant by this. I am 5′7″ (170cm) and he was no taller than 5′3″, so I always referred to him that way, because from my perspective, he was a (cute) little guy.
Anyway, we became friends because he walked by my office one day on his way to the restroom. In my old library, there were one-person men’s and ladies’ restrooms near my office. I later found out that the reason he had spotted me was because this was the restroom in the library that he preferred to use. He thought I was pretty and made up his mind to meet me.
I remember the day we met. He knocked on my door and struck up a conversation with me like we already knew each other. Since it was near the beginning of the school year, I had been all over campus talking to people and thought maybe I had met him and forgot. So, when he came into my office that day, I didn’t want to be rude and act like I didn’t remember him. It turned out that I had never met him, but we soon became friends anyway.
One day, about a year after we first met, he asked me if I liked watermelon. I confirmed that I did. He then told me he wanted to bring me a watermelon. At this time I was living alone and though I like watermelon, I could never eat a whole watermelon before it went bad. I told him so and tried to discourage the gift of watermelon. For two or three weeks he persisted. He wanted to buy me a watermelon. To this day, I am not exactly sure why…
Then one hot, humid, August evening (is there any other kind in Mississippi?), there was a knock on my door. It was my little Chinese guy with a big grin on his face. He had stopped by because he had brought my watermelon. He went to his car and when I looked, I saw him carrying a watermelon across my lawn that was almost as big as he was! I told him I hoped that he was in the mood for watermelon because we were going to have to eat it then and there.
Unfortunately, the watermelon wasn’t quite ripe. So he brought it inside and sat it on my counter (it took up half my counter space!). It sat there for almost a week, untouched. Then one day I realized that it was probably getting close to overripe.
So, I took it over to my best friend’s house and along with her husband and three kids, we had a watermelon feast! My only regret is that I didn’t share that delicious watermelon with my little Chinese guy.