Attention, shoppers
Hmm. It’s starting to seem like every time I post something to this page, it’s about an embarrassing story. Oh, well, here goes.
Yesterday we went to the WalMart in Nanchang. That’s right, WalMart. We’ve been doing a lot of shopping in discount stores in China. In Beijing, there was a Carrefour (a joint French/Chinese WalMart competitor) right next to the hotel, and I think we made four trips there in five days.
Anyway, yesterday we went to the WalMart to stock up on the local brand of formula that Lina is used to: “Hero”. “We”, in this case, was Stephanie, Lina, and me, along with our friend and fellow new parent, Roy. While we (or in this case, I) was at it, I figured I’d pick up a couple bottles of local beer, too.
It was quite crowded near the exit as we headed out the door loaded with plastic grocery bags; I was fumbling for the hotel business card (to show to the taxi driver so he’d know where to take us). I managed to pull it out of my pocket and then a strange thing happened. The load in my left hand suddenly got lighter by approximately the weight of one grocery bag with a couple of large bottles of beer in it. Okay, by exactly the weight of one grocery bag with two large bottles of beer and two jars of baby food in it. A few milliseconds later, there was a very loud bang followed immediately by a couple of screams and much intaking of breath. I looked down to see white foam pouring from a bag on the floor. I looked up to see half of Nanchang (a city of four million people) staring openmouthed at me.
Within about 5 seconds, there was a woman there with a broom and a big dustpan. I barely had time to pull the unbroken jars of babyfood out of the foam before she swept the remains away. We hurried out into the rain to look for a taxi home.