Kicking Babies

A few days ago I was having so much fun playing Dead Rising and Forza on my xbox360 that I completely lost track of time.  I was supposed to meet my girlfriend in central for dinner that evening and by the time I finally glanced at my clock I was already 10 minutes late!  Not only that, but I had 20kg of laundry that I had to carry across an extremely crowded shopping mall and drop off at the cleaners before catching my bus!  I had to hurry!!

I threw down my controller, grabbed my phone, put headphones on, grabbed my giant bag of laundry, and ran out the door.  Earlier that day I had been listening to music with my regular open air headphones but was now using my in-ear isolation headphones.  In my rush I neglected to account for the volume difference between these two pairs.  At about 3/4 volume, I now had Trivuim blasting at a near deafening volume, and with no free hands to turn it down I was stuck with it.

I'm not sure if it was because of the video games, the loud metal, or that I was in a huge rush with a giant heavy bag I wanted to get rid of as quickly as possible, but I was in no mood to tolerate the wall of people occupying every inch of the mall between my house and the laundromat. 

I charged through the crowd like a maniac, weaving between people, taking every opportunity to pass, and intimidating those I couldn't get past with the giant puffy battering ram I had between my tired arms.  All was going well until I got stuck with a wall to my right, a slow fat woman to my left, and a tiny woman walking the opposite direction directly in front of me.  I thought about what my next move should be.  The fat woman to my left was unlikely to move, and barring some divine intervention, It was even more unlikely that the wall to my right would be going anywhere.  My bet was that the woman in front of me, who unlike me had plenty of space around her, would see that I was unable to move and go around me.  I watched her to see what she would do when suddenly our eyes met!  This was the perfect opportunity for me to solve my problem!

Since moving to Hong Kong I've developed a lot of creative tricks for getting through crowds.  I've used fake hacking coughs, air drumming to music, and skipping, but by far the most effective weapon I have is eye contact.  If I want somebody to get out of my way all I have to do is get them to look at me.  Once they do, I open my eyes as wide as I can and I stare, not at them, but behind them or slightly beside them.  No smiling, no blinking, no emotion.  Just two giant empty eyes.  Everybody reacts the exact same way.  Immediately after our eyes meet, they look away.  After a few seconds they look again with their eyes, not turning their head, to see if I'm still looking at them.  I am!  They repeat this maybe 2 or 3 times, then eventually turn their head and look directly at me, as if to say "oh, you want to have a staring contest?  bring it on!"  I hold my unwavering blank expression.  After a few seconds of this I abruptly switch from looking behind or slightly beside them to looking directly into their eyes, and give them a "why are you staring at me" expression.  At this point they realize that I wasn't actually looking at them, but at something near them!  Suddenly THEY are the asshole, and feeling foolish for having been staring at me for the last few seconds they step out of the way and let me pass.  It works every time!

This woman, however, was different.  When I shifted my eyes and stared directly at her over my big bag of clothing she just kept staring back at me!  She had absolutely no reaction to what I had done.  Was she trying to use my own trick against me?  I INVENTED that trick and there was no way I was going to let some lady beat me at it!  With no free hands for air drumming and the bag covering my mouth and keeping me from coughing I had no choice but to take evasive action.  But what could I do?  I was blocked from every angle, while she still had plenty of space to move!  It was as if she expected me to stop, press myself against the wall, hold my bag over my head, and wait for her to comfortably pass me.  Unfortunately for her, this was not happening.  She had to be moved.  If I couldn't defeat her psychologically, I would defeat her with force!

In the last few seconds before we collided my relaxed pace drastically changed to long and exaggerated steps.  I firmed up the bag in front of me in preparation for our impending collision and kept my eyes locked directly on hers.  I was sure this would make her move, but we just kept getting closer and closer, her path unchanged!  Eventually we got to the point of no return.  Our eye contact was broken as she got close enough that I couldn't see her over the bag in my arms and I braced for impact.  I took my last steps with excessive force and confidence, and as I threw my right foot forward it suddenly struck something a bit sooner than I had expected.  I moved the bag to the side to see what I had kicked.  It was a stroller.  Oh my god, I just kicked her baby!

I guess there is a first time for everything.  I never ate sea cucumber until a few weeks ago, and until this day I had never kicked a baby.  My mind spin wildly trying to figure out what to do next.  In my defense, with the thick crowd and the large bag in front of me, I really could not see the stroller.  Was this my fault?  What kind of a parent uses their child as a cow catcher?  I could think of hundreds of more ethical and responsible things she could have used to push people out of her way, but she chose to use a baby.  I thought parents were supposed to protect babies, not use them to push people!  What kind of mother was this? 

But no, I just kicked a stroller while intentionally walking at full speed.  There was no excuse for this.  I reluctantly stopped, pulled my bag to my side and prepared to attempt an apology in Cantonese when I took a closer look at her child.  There was a mesh cover pulled over the stroller, but I tried my best to look through it and see if the baby was ok.  As soon as I got a good look I realized that there was something very strange about this baby.  It was a Zara bag!

This lady was using a stroller as a shopping cart, no doubt with intentions of getting people to move out of her way in fear of kicking a baby!  This was even better than my staring trick!  Relieved, angry, and somewhat disappointed that somebody had developed an even better way of cutting through crowds, I resumed my pace and forced my way to the laundromat.  Thankfully I won't have to add "kicking babies" to the list of new experiences I've had since moving to Hong Kong!