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.