Rich life

He would always set his alarm for 8. But he would wake up at 7:55 and not let the alarm ring and wake up his wife. He would get up, go to the bathroom and then to the kitchen, turn on the coffee pot and take the cereals with oat milk. He would sip coffee and look at his emails. Some would have come during the night and the department secretary would already send the messages about the things to do that day. Then he would dress up and walk briskly to the train station. The train was leaving at 9:23. It is a very neat, orderly train. The seats are impeccably clean, windows washed every evening. Nobody talks on the train. He would sit next to the window because he likes the light. And then look at his phone and finish reading messages that he didn’t have the time to read when taking the breakfast. The train arrived to his university town at 10:07. He got off. Unfortunately, it was raining. He was too cheap to take a cab and justified it by thinking that he was saving energy and lowering emissions by walking. But he had no umbrella and got to the department totally soaked. He shoes and socks were dripping wet. He went to his office (on the third floor), turned on his computer, looked again at the messages that have arrived and got ready for the mid-day conference. There was a new researcher that had just finished the survey on delivery of social assistance in Zambia. It would be a very interesting presentation. He was not convinced by the methodology the researcher had used. He has seen better work being done on West African countries. He went to the conference room. There were already six people there. The presentation went on until 1:30 pm. He went quickly downstairs to the cafeteria to get a sandwich. He liked vegetarian sandwiches. He filled his water bottle. He took it all to his office, sat down and went back to the paper he was writing. But somehow the words did not come up as easily as they normally do. He wrote a couple of paragraphs, re-wrote them, and then went back to the data his Malaysian research assistant has put together several months ago. He was interrupted by more messages. The work went on for a couple of hours but he did not produce much. The department seemed quiet. It was about time to go back to the train station. The train leaves at 5:47. He was there on the dot. He took almost the same seat he had when he travelled to his office in the morning. He thought about his last summer vacation. They went to Indonesia. They saw the largest waterfall in the world. Then they hiked for several days along the unusual jungle paths. He took many photos, some of which he posted on Facebook. Friends liked them. He posted more. He made love to his wife because this is what one does on vacation. They went back to Jakarta. And then took the plane back home. It was a long flight. He liked his vacation. Thought of it: perhaps another one like this, this year? The train arrived. The rain had stopped. He walked slowly back home and was wondering if there would be a Turkish pizza for dinner or he would have to unfreeze the chicken they ate a couple of days ago. Luckily, his wife had ordered a Turkish pizza. Mustachioed fat man delivered it. It was tasty. They sat down, chew the pizza and he drank half a glass of red wine. Then his wife went upstairs to watch a movie. He didn’t like movies or Netflix. He went back to his phone, looked who wrote to him in the meantime, checked BlueSky. Then he went to bed. He set his alarm for 8. Although he would always wake up 5 minutes earlier at 7:55 and turn off the phone so as not to wake up his wife.

[Was motivated by a friend’s conversation tonight about a year she spent in a rich European country.]