CHAPTER 9

Original (Published in "Lun's World"): 2003-9-29

Reposted: 2025-3-21

While we were not noticing, Lun brought the new electric fan into the bathroom and immersed the fan blades in the toilet seat.

Some of Lun's behaviors can only be described as "unreasonable" because they violate our common sense and challenge our limits, which sometimes makes me feel that life is absurd.

At the beginning of this year (2003), when it was still winter, Lun moved a floor fan in the bedroom to the front of the bathroom door. Because it blocked our entry and exit, we had to move it away every time. Afterwards, he always put it back in front of the door, indicating that he didn't like us moving his fan.

Once he starts behaving strangely, he sticks with it. After we fell asleep, he put the fan back in front of the bathroom door, and later brought the fan into the bathroom.  We strictly prohibit this because we are afraid that the electric fan will get wet and cause electric leakage.

As the saying goes, for every policy there is a countermeasure. When we weren't noticing, he moved the fan so that it was gently attached to the edge of the toilet, and then put the fan back at the door. He repeated this trick during the day and at night, whether we were awake or asleep, and eventually we got used to it.  After more than a month, he stopped this strange behavior, and we were both happy and free and no longer worried about it.

Halfway through the summer vacation, Lun was impatient for a long vacation and felt a little anxious, so he moved the fan to the bathroom again. This time he took a fancy to a newly bought table fan and placed it next to the toilet from the beginning. A few days later, we heard the sound of water. It turned out that he put the fan into the toilet, and the fan seat was filled with water and became wet. Then he put it back in front of the door, so the bathroom floor and the carpet in front of the door were covered with toilet water.

We recalled the SARS epidemic a while ago and thought that if we lived in Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong, with Lun, the whole family would definitely be infected with SARS.  What will environmental sanitation become?  Not only was I furious, I had to use a higher concentration of bleach, 1:49, to disinfect.

Blaming him, fighting with him for fans, would at best only stop him for a while. He kept pestering us, and when we were not paying attention, we suddenly heard the sound of water again. I hid the fan and he couldn't find it, so he cried and screamed all night. Later, I took him to the parking lot and checked the car, and he finally calmed down.

I chose to keep quiet, but I was still unwilling to give in, and I complained: "What kind of life is this? Why is he so weird?"

He was so happy after a week-long trip that he forgot about the fan for a few days after coming back. We were thankful.  Because I consulted a specialist before leaving, he advised us to hide all the fans. How can this be possible?

A few days later, Lun dragged his treasure, the severely faded quilt that had accompanied him in sleeping for ten years, into the bedroom. We immediately knew what he was up to, and the three of us, two adults  and one boy, worked together to stop him.  He protested, nagging and harassing in front of the bathroom door...

He always liked to put a corner of the blanket into the toilet when everyone was getting ready for bed. He wrung the soaked corner, after dipping it in the toilet, brought it back to the room, covered himself with it to sleep, and refused to change the blanket.

We could only wash the blanket after he went to school, put bleach in the toilet to disinfect the toilet water, and clean his hands often for him when he was at home. Whenever he couldn't find his beloved sheet, he would become restless and cry out in despair.

I can't explain this behavior, it challenges normal living habits and hygiene standards.  Every time I saw him put the sheets into the toilet water, I always felt strongly that there were very absurd things in life that could not be explained in a lifetime, and yet we had to face them every day.

When I was feeling indignant, thinking and reflecting on the meaning of life, Lun returned to the bedroom with the torn and wet sheets, laughing happily.