Remember the pig pile at China Airlines in JFK way back in August? I had almost forgotten. Silly me. I should have been using this time of peace to hone my left jab and right elbow to the gut skills for the next time I needed them. Instead I got complacent and lazy - embracing the groovy, laid back vibe of Hoi An.
Then I found myself in the big city of Danang on a Saturday night, and it all came rushing back. We were at the Big C, a shopping mall/supermarket/cinema all rolled into one. We had done KFC. We had indulged in a movie. We could have been anywhere in the United States. Then we rode the escalator down one level, and the bedlam embraced us. Apparently everyone in Vietnam saves their grocery shopping for Saturday night, and everyone descends on Danang. The entire store was a scene of mass chaos. John headed for the restrooms with Nolan and another young friend. Brianna drew the short straw and got stuck with me and the teeming mosh pit of grocery shoppers.
I kept listening for the "blue light special" to determine what in the world was going on at this store. No luck. People piled through clothing like it was going out of style (most of it looked out of style to me anyway). It looked like a desperate shopping frenzy on Black Friday in the United States. Thousands of people were on a quest for something, and I still haven't got a clue as to what it was. Brianna and I alternately shuffled and blasted our way through the aisles in search of a few key items that we have not been able to find in Hoi An. It was most definitely an ATPF spectacle. We must have missed the memo to all of the other APFs in Danang telling them to stay away. There was not another sympathetic, confused pale face in sight. Everyone else seemed to be in on the joke. So I tried to embrace the "tall" part and scanned the sea of heads below me in search of the clearest path to each item. We endured lots of giggles, "hellos," and measuring up (when people randomly walk up and size themselves up next to you).
The grocery store is a two-story mammoth with check-out lines on both levels that are never both open at the same time. So you shop and then try to figure out where to pay. It never fails that the check out is not on the level we finish on. On this night it was particularly frustrating because we had to blast our way back through the crowd to the escalator to go upstairs to pay. The escalator was an accident waiting to happen. It's actually a steep moving ramp, so that people can push their shopping cart right on. On this night the ramp was packed wall to wall with people and carts. Naturally we were positioned directly behind the woman whose cart got stuck at the top. So, with the escalator still moving, and her cart wedged in a crack, the people started piling up in a forced stampede fashion (everyone was stampeding against their will). Fortunately someone finally yanked the cart free, and we all tumbled out onto the floor. Brianna and I shook our heads and dusted ourselves off for the battle ahead...the check out line.
Twenty check-out lines with lines thirty people deep stood between us and our escape to freedom. I'm impatient when it comes to normal lines. Lines thirty people deep make my retail brain spin. I started thinking about the profit the store would make from my purchase vs. the cost of hiring a few more cashiers at a ridiculously low wage. I seemed to be the only one who cared (besides Brianna who had had more than enough, but couldn't find a crack big enough to escape through to get out of the mess). Everyone around us was smiling and pushing and pushing some more. The whole concept of a line was irrelevant. We had gone back to pig piling. This time the victim was the cashier. She was the only one not smiling (besides me). "Thirty people deep" implies a line of some sort. This was more like a mass mob, tussling to see who could throw their items onto the conveyor belt first. I was in one of those awkward ATP person positions. I didn't want to throw my junk in front of everyone else, lest they think I was an arrogant ATP person who always gets her way because she's awkwardly tall and pale. I eventually realized that no one really seemed to care that I was an ATP person. They just smiled, pushed their way in front of me, threw an elbow in the process and tossed their goods onto the conveyor belt.
Eventually a kind gentleman in the "not line" behind me, took pity and started yelling at people on my behalf. At least that's what I imagined he was doing. He smiled at me and then bit the head off the next little girl who tried to wedge her basket in front of me. In reality, this probably had nothing to do with me and everything with him wanting to get out of the store before midnight. In fact, he probably said, "Would you just let this bumbling freak of an Amazon woman check out and get out of here so the rest of us can get back to pig piling. Her strangely tall body yet oddly placid behavior are making me nuts."
And there I was...at the front of the "not line" with my ant spray and Tupperware...ready to pay my money at last. I turned to thank my savior, but he was too busy pig piling to even notice. I pried an exhausted Brianna off the floor, and we headed down the dangerous escalators of death to meet John and his minions. When we finally arrived on the lower level and stepped off the escalator, John was there waiting and shaking his head. I looked like I had been through a food processor...chewed up and spit out by Vietnam.
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