Adoption Freaky Scale: The Roundabout

A Word about the new Adoption Freaky Scale: there seems to be no beginning or no end. It's based on a traffic roundabout. The shape also brings to mind diagrams of hurricanes.

Once when Babba and I were in Cambodia we rented bicycles. We set forth early one morning on our squeaky old single speeds. The town had a roundabout, and there was no way to avoid riding in it to get to a nice beach. The roundabout was full of motorcycles that wove every which way- motorcycles carrying huge loads of lumber or plumbing supplies, multi-generational families or livestock.

Babba went first- circling around the roundabout cautiously. He was nervous about where I was since he couldn't turn around to find me while focusing his bike. When he did have a chance to sneek a peek as to my whereabouts he couldn't see me. He thought that I'd accidentally turned off one of the other streets on the roundabout. He circled around the roundabout again in order to catch me and supposedly save me from becoming lost.

Meanwhile, I'm bicycling along and following what I perceive to be the traffic rules and Babba suddenly disappears. He just vanishes. Just like that- GONE! I pedal as fast as I can to find him. I turn down the road we'd said we would take- the right road- through dense jungles with iguanas whipping their tails in the undergrowth. I get laughed at for being a white tourist as I bike through tiny villages with a worried look on my face- all the while looking for Babba. I race and race and race.I encounter a drunk man passed out miserably in the middle of the road. I imagine never finding Babba again. My mind darts around about possible tragedies that explain Babba's disappearance: he was kidnapped with his bike and thrown into the back of a truck or he'd had a bicycle accident and had been taken to the hospital. Where the hell is Babba?!

I don't have a hotel key or any identification on me. Babba has all of that. I have no money on me. And I don't speak the language- there's always that.

Babba rides all the way back to the hotel looking for me- from his perspective I'm the one who disappeared! He retraces everywhere we'd ridden that morning and he retraces everywhere we'd been the previous day. I'm totally gone to him.

We each ride around looking for the other for hours in the baking sun not knowing where the other one is. That's what this adoption is like. Like that day- over and over again. In the real life story we found each other and ate green curry on the beach out of coconuts.