The nearest Walgreens is at Stockton and Vallejo. It's literally one block away, but always seems like a large chore to walk to, largely because as soon as you cross the street you've entered Chinatown and all bets are off. What you or I would consider common sense and street smarts are out the window and confusion and inertia rule the day.
Recently, I had a headache and needed a new stick of antiperspirant, so I physched myself up and walked into the lion's den. Blank stares to my left, needlessly gridlocked intersection to my right and pink plastic shopping bags all around like some piss-poor-choreographed grand musical number, at least that's what I imagined. They must've thought I was crazy, walking along with some goofy smirk on my face.
I made my way through the old, hunched ladies and uniformed school kids, bouncing off them like bumper cars. There's no "oh, pardon me", or general changing of course in Chinatown. There may be 9 feet of open sidewalk next to you, but if someone gets in your way, you may as well be an ant that had some kid step on the comrade in front of you, destroying all scent and creating utter chaos as you try every avenue but the obvious one to get back on course. I bounced my way into the drug store, maneuvering around the portly old woman who was standing in front of the open "In" door, staring in. Just staring.
I'm going to need to start looking for the tiny, cleverly-disguised Truman Show cameras when I go in this Walgreens. I swear everyone is on a loop. The old Chinese man with the Elvis Costello glasses and walker with tennis ball brakes seems to always be standing over at the cosmetics counter, coughing up a lung when I walk in. The old, egg-shaped woman is always propped on her cane in the toy aisle, facing nothing in particular. The 4'2" clerk in the blue Walgreens smock is always circling aisles 4B and 5A with the sort of frantic hustle he must give when he darts across the street late to his bus in the morning. It all seems awfully rehearsed and suspiciously perfected.
They must have a really high kleptomaniac population in Chinatown that struggles with body odor, because every stick of deodorant and antiperspirant is behind locked fiberglass. I pressed the button that welcomes you to beckon a customer service representative.
*Chime* "Customer service needed in the cosmetics department," came robo-woman's voice on the intercom. Two moments later, the clerk in the smock came speed walking around the corner to assist, almost as if he'd been waiting for it.
I sauntered to the end of the checkout line and watched as some woman demanded in horrifically broken English that her batteries be discounted to the price notated on her coupon, which she had folded 8 times over into her side pocket. I looked down and noticed that a stout woman had positioned herself nearly in front of me, directly in the middle of the clearly-formed line, six people deep. She took three sidesteps left to wedge herself in good, positioning herself straight ahead of me.
Her pal apparently knew the drill and had taken up her place at the end of the line, from where she was now shouting at her friend. The stout woman turned around and appeared to stare into my right breast, almost through it, towards the sound of her friend's yells. This went on for a few seconds, almost as if she was pausing for the tiny button camera on her taupe windbreaker to get a good shot of me... Then she shuffled past, banging my elbow en route to the end of line.
And this, so we're told by fear mongering pundits, is our future - resistance is futile. More than communism, I wonder if this wasn't the truer fear from the 'yellow hordes'.
ReplyDeleteThis is how I see it, having survived a year in Asia proper, there is no plan B Trav. If you are knocked off course or someone steps in your way, you must continue onward fellow soldier. Because there is no plan B.
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