Let’s Start With Ridiculous And Work Backwards

Do you remember the scene in the movie “Stranger Than Fiction” when Harold Crick kept a tally in his moleskin? 

He recorded all occurrences in his day, determining whether the story he was living was a comedy or a tragedy.  If my own moleskin contained such a tally, I have no idea which way I’d go with this one.

Saturday night just before bed, I turned on a small A/C unit in my bedroom, as well as a tiny little fan on the nightstand next to my bed.  It cools the room just right and provides the soft, soothing “whirrr…” that guarantees a sound night’s sleep.

Little did she know that this seemingly innocuous act would result in her imminent death [of a good night's sleep]. 

At 2:30 a.m. I awoke to the sound of loud, incessant banging. 

It took several minutes for me to realize that the commotion was someone hammering on my front door. 

Stumbling out of bed, I looked through the peephole to see a very old, very tiny Chinese woman using her cane to wail away on my door.  I figured that unless she was Jackie Chan’s grandmother, there was not much of a chance she could take me in a fight, so  I opened the door.  With the same skillfulness of squeezing oneself onto a crowded Chinese bus, this lady wedged herself past me and planted herself in the middle of my living room.  Wagging her finger at me and yelling in a combination of Cantonese and Mandarin, she was clearly furious. 

Have you met anyone who simply might loathe the very core of you?

With her cane and her tiny beslippered feet, she first pointed at my row of shoes by the front door and then stomped around my apartment, repeating the same word over and over again (I can only assume the word was something like “loud” or “noisy” or “elephant”).  I tried to explain I never wear my shoes in my house, but she totally ignored me.

She then barged into my bedroom, pointed at my A/C unit and declared, “Ah-HAH!!”  She started yelling at me again.  I could hardly understand anything she said except for the words “no sleep.”  She kept talking and talking, as I just stood there.  Every once in awhile, she’d take a moment to breathe and I could jump in with, “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you.”  This did not register.  The yelling and finger-wagging continued. 

Then all of a sudden her face changed as if she’d just realized something.  She squinted her eyes and looked at me again.  She got right up to my face and yelled the obvious: “You’re NOT Chinese!” 

Immediately, her entire demeanor changed.  She started apologizing and bowing.  Bowing and bowing, with her little wrinkled hands clasping mine.  Then she apologized for making my apartment dirty by not removing her slippers upon entering.  She asked me again and again me to give her a broom.  Not knowing what else to do, I obliged.  As she fussed around my apartment, I just stood there – still half asleep and trying to figure out what was happening.

Apology accepted.  But only because you stammered.

Before I knew it, she was gone.  For several minutes, I stood by my front door with my sleep mask still shoved onto my forehead, holding my broom and dustpan. 

I hoped this would be a one-time encounter, but I was wrong.

Getting home from Beijing Sunday afternoon, I went straight to my sofa for a nap.  Just as I was about to drift off, the doorbell rang.  (Do not imagine an American doorbell.  Imagine the sound a dying cat would make if you stuffed it in a tiny space and yanked its tail repeatedly.)

Bleary-eyed, I answered the door again.  In she came a second time, talking a mile a minute.  Finally, I interrupted her and said slowly in Mandarin, “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand you.  Please let me call my Chinese friend and you can talk to her instead.”  I called Sally, explained the situation, and handed the woman my phone.  She sat her self down at my dining table and started to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I made her a cup of tea since it was obvious she had no plan to leave anytime soon.  After about twenty minutes, she handed me back my phone, smiled triumphantly, thanked me for the tea, and disappeared.

Sally explained what I had already assumed:  this lady wasn’t able to sleep at night because the sound of  my air conditioner outside her window was keeping her awake.

Apparently this lady also told Sally I was far too pretty to not be married, and that I should move back to America to find a husband.  Then maybe she could also have a quiet, Chinese neighbor who could understand her.

So last night out of politeness, I “slept” with no air conditioning.  It was a long, hot, sticky, miserable night.

This morning right before I headed to work, she appeared outside my apartment again – this time, holding a handwritten note.  Sally translated the note for me when I got to the office.  It outlined the days she will stay with her children in Beijing – and thus, the days she will “permit” me to use my air conditioning.

Like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method.

In China, you always defer to the older person’s wishes, out of respect.  But does this mean I’m going to spend most of my summer in misery?

And so, internet friends, I put it to you – am I living in a comedy or a tragedy?

And so she did what countless punk-rock songs had told her to do so many times before: she lived her life.