THE FOAM PAD

Returning to the bus stop, as we peer into dark shops trying to decipher what each has to offer, a row of identical shops has what appears to be rolls of foam stacked from floor to ceiling. Warily Rob and I cross the busy streets lined with makeshift vendors’ tables and tents. Cars and bicycles dart wherever space opens up, and we haven’t learned the nonchalant pedestrian code yet. The idea strikes both of us, between leaps, that maybe we could buy some foam to ease the unyielding mattress on our bed. How much? It’ll be a big piece of foam. The bed is comparable to a king-sized bed. Even if we could measure it (we haven’t seen a tape measure here of any kind yet), how would we lug such a thing home? Robert’s ingenuity is percolating again. He prowls around our apartment when we get home and finds a piece of twine. He measures the length and width of the bed, knotting it at the appropriate spots. Three weeks later, with the string rolled up in Rob’s pocket, we’re ready. After our renewal at the Riley’s, we saunter from foam shop to foam shop. The proprietors, startled from dozing in the darkness and amazed to see two foreigners, try to figure out what we want. We gather that the shops serve large furniture manufacturers, so our request for a piece of foam about six by seven feet is small potatoes to them. They shake their heads and don’t want to cut a piece that small. Finally we find a young entrepreneur willing to sell us two end pieces that will fit on top of our mattress. Money changes hands, and we expect him to roll the two pieces so we can tote them home. He doesn’t. He makes a great ceremony of wrapping plastic over the two seven by three flat chunks! Okay. We can either balance the unwieldy behemoths on our heads as we dodge traffic, flapping them threateningly fore and aft, or carry them like shields in front of us before we wedge ourselves and the huge slabs into the buses. We settle on a combination of both techniques, realizing that we cut a pretty ridiculous figure. Taking a more expensive taxi is out of the question since they’re tiny, locally manufactured cars, barely able to take two adults into the back seat. So it’ll have to be the buses. We recall sharing space with live ducks, huge, tattered bags of household items, engine parts, items large and small we can only guess at, which are casually brought onto Chinese buses. Apparently our foreignness makes our spectacle unique. We’re growing accustomed to their dropping jaws as we move through the culture here, but the vision we present now is over the top. Faces crease in smiles, even giggles, which we certainly deserve. Hands reach down to help us climb aboard the buses, and men and women scoot over to allow us to wiggle our peculiar burdens through the crowds to a space where we can breathe. The experience is unheard of, making room for anyone on a bus, but we’re deeply grateful. We’re also sure that many Chinese will arrive home breathless and say the equivalent of “Honey, you’re not gonna believe what I saw on the bus today!”