Got the Sesame, Lost the Watermelon

One Monday evening, while I was washing dishes and my mind was wandering, I suddenly remembered a bizarre text message a client had sent the evening before: “Got the sesame, no watermelon.” Without much thought, I texted back: “Lao Huang, what does your message mean?” The reply vanished like a stone in the ocean, and I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until today that it suddenly clicked—Lao Huang was saying I’d “picked up the sesame seeds and lost the watermelon.”

I got angry immediately. After finishing the dishes, I sat at my desk and re-read yesterday’s messages to make sure I hadn’t misread. No mistake—Lao Huang meant he wouldn’t be asking me for design work anymore. Judging by his tone, I’d lost a valuable contact. But I didn’t regret losing this client. After all, knowing him was accidental, and I hadn’t gained much from him up to this point. From my current perspective, the future remains in a Schrödinger’s cat state. Lao Huang’s departure simply returns me to the parallel universe I was in before I met him, so life goes on as before.

So why was I angry? It was really about another person—Lao Du, who often plays cards and drinks with Lao Huang and owes me half a year’s payment. I can’t guess exactly what Lao Du told Lao Huang, but I suspect he complained about me calling him every day to demand repayment.

Actually, none of this is a big deal. Lao Du owes me 2,000 yuan for design work, always saying he’d pay, but half a year went by with nothing. I happened to be short on cash recently, so I called him every day to collect. After a week of this, I lost my temper and told him: “2,000 yuan isn’t much—just tell your finance department to process it, it takes a few minutes. I shouldn’t have to make a special trip to the office for 2,000 yuan, and that’s embarrassing for everyone!” That damaged the relationship—but honestly, I was already prepared for that. You meet too many people in life; one less is fine.

Later, I planned to send Lao Huang a comparison image of a pile of sesame seeds next to a watermelon to show him which is bigger—a pile of sesame seeds or one watermelon. But then I thought about it again—since we won’t be working together anymore, saying more would just be nonsense.