Toto the Too Small Toilet or How to Know It's Time to Go Home

We've known it was coming, first, because that was always the plan and then more definitely as McLeod's company began the process. But somehow, until recently, leaving Taiwan for good was just a date on a calendar. Even when our U.S. house went on the market mid-March, it wasn't really sinking in. Afterall, we haven't lived there for three years, so it didn't really feel like our house anymore. But then small things, little "for the last time" moments, started accumulating and bigger things started happening like turning in official school paperwork to withdraw the kids. Then one day, quite suddenly, you make a mental shift, and it's time to go.

My mental shift happened with a cracked toilet. For the last 6 months, we've had an annoying leak in the apartment. Clearly some pipe in the bathroom was leaking beneath the tile and seeping out to the wood flooring in the bedroom. We'd go away for awhile. The engineers would fix something, replace boards and then pretty soon the water stain would show up again. When we came back from our final big trip to Palau, they assured me it was fixed. Yes, I'm happy to report that leak WAS finally fixed. But with the first post-vacation flush, water started seeping out of the porcelain itself and puddling on the tile floor. Someone cracked the toilet. Not a happy day, mostly for poor Mr. Lee, the hardworking, kind-hearted head engineer. How sad he looked to tell me, "No use it. Tomorrow... plumber." The kids and I made a nice out-of-order sign.

Tomorrow came. Two plumbers and an engineer walked into the apartment. It didn't register with me that they had a medium sized cardboard box on a trolley outside my door, so I proceeded to do what I always do when working with repairmen here: go into a kind of interpretive dance to explain the problem. I am suddenly having flashbacks to that day, specifically the point where I got down on all fours in our small bathroom to point out the leak on the toilet. This elicited an embarrassed, "Yes, yes, yes, ok, ok, ok" from the three men who I now realize were getting a view of my rear end. It was soon revealed that they were not there to repair the leak. They were taking away our toilet and replacing it with a smaller version.

Gone is our nice, big (read: wide-seat) Kohler. Sitting in its place is Toto the Too Small. It is narrow, and it is low. Parts of you hurt if you linger too long. Your magazines fall off the back because there is a 6-inch gap between the tank and the wall. Suddenly our castle is without its throne. And so it's time to move to another castle, a Texas-sized castle with well-equipped bathrooms.

Now we are knee-deep in preparations. We sold one house and bought another after a whirlwind trip to the States by McLeod. I have a notebook full of lists and a folder full of paperwork. There are pages in the notebook where I've scribbled things like "Rattan Chairs--cheaper in Taiwan" and "Get instructions for sprinkler system" along with many much more important items. McLeod comes home each day to what he calls the beaver dam at the front door, the fruits of my labor as I clean out every drawer and cabinet. Heaps of stuff sorted to toss, pass along, or donate get distributed and then replenished. And I keep finding things I didn't even know we brought to Taiwan--McLeod's antique pocket watch, a plate that says Chicago on it, candlesticks--and of course, things that don't even belong to me. That thing you thought you lost? Don't worry, I'm sure it's sitting in a bag with your name on it at my front door.

And somehow, perhaps because my brain is so full of lists and plans or maybe because it's starting to become all-American again, I find myself making rookie mistakes. I took the wrong bus twice in 10 days. I tried to make a special order at McDonalds--something I know better than to try to do--and ended up with a sausage egg burger with mayonaise. I took something on a toothpick from a lady passing out samples at the grocery store, and guess what? It was STILL, after three years, a weird, squishy, fried unknown substance from the sea. The only difference was that I actually chewed it up and swallowed it and didn't even stop to think what I'd eaten until I was at least three aisles over.

Most fitting of all, though, McLeod and I recently had a movie night to rival our very first movie night in Taipei. Out to see Star Trek, our brains bubbling with trivia and critical buzz about the film, we walked up to the counter and asked for tickets to the 9pm showing. (By the way the kiosks for self-serve tickets seem to be permanently broken--perhaps too many big American meat hooks pounded on the screens?) Up, up, up the escalators, checking each floor against our ticket and being ushered ever higher by the helpful staff. At last in our seats, we settled in for the previews, finding them a tad violent but not unusual for Taiwan. At last the movie began. A strange sepia-tinted sequence flickered on the screen with tinny piano playing. Were these the young Kirk's family photos? A death in the family perhaps as the series of stills from a circa 1900 funeral flashed on the screen. Back story to what he will become as captain of the Enterprise? But when the images started to cut away to someone oozing big drops of the red stuff, we grabbed up our tickets and stared at the Chinese characters willing them to make sense. By then the title came up on the screen: The Haunting in Connecticut. We bolted from our seats. Down, down, down the escalators we went to hand off our tickets to a perplexed manager and say, "Wrong Movie! Star Trek? Star Trek?" Turns out there wasn't a 9pm showing of Star Trek so we'd been sold the next best thing. There was, however, a 9:10pm showing of Star Trek, so they traded out the tickets and ushered us immediately into theater 1 on the main floor. Just in time for the previews to start. We had a great night, made all the better by our near-haunting in Conneticut.

But now the credits are rolling on this expat adventure. In a few days we board the plane, bags full of trinkets, hearts full of memories. We've taken time over the last month to see favorite places. Yingge, the pottery town, successfully emptied my wallet as I stocked up on "just a few more" dishes, tea cups and vases. We spent a weekend at McLeod's beloved Green Island with my dive buddy Cathy and her family. While Cathy, McLeod and I were 20 meters under on those fantastic, ancient coral beds, Cathy's husband Wei-Ai drove 4 kids calling themselves the Spriters all over the island in a golf cart now known as the Adventure Truck. The locals would grin, wave and make way for the bunch who would serenade them with "Hey now, you're an All-star! Get your game on. Go Play!" We've also had a few last meals of dumplings, along with more than a few visits to Chili's, and we made a final trip to Taipei 101, the now almost-tallest building in the world. These last weeks have been blessed, too, with time to savor moments with friends. We will be forever grateful for the friendships that changed us from strangers in a strange land into neighbors and friends, living happy lives in a place they became proud to call home.

Zai Jian, Taipei! The Texpats are so very glad they came.