Plod Ahead, In Disbeleif

Christmas eve, and there is only one large purchase left to make.  The bike shop is a five- minute drive from here, across the street from the Shandong restaurant, we occasionally dine in.   The bike has already been picked out a few days before.  It’s right up on the second floor.  They’re open today.   The bike is in stock . . .  Heading over I’m talking on the phone and making sure I don’t hit anything.  I make a legitimate U-turn on the high road and then move over on to the side road with the bikes and motor carts.

The turn into the bike shop is just ahead.   To my right is the dormitory for the stewards and stewardesses for Xiamen Airline.  Before me, on this access road is a flat bed truck, tilted to ground inviting me to drive straight up and away in the air, as if I were Starsky and Hutch in a chase scene.  Still talking, I move back out into traffic and return to the side-lane fifty meters ahead.  Where’s the bike store?  Proceeding slowly, it doesn't appear.  Clearly, I’ve gone too far.

Frustrated, but trying not to show it on the phone, I ask the person to repeat the question and plod ahead, in disbelief.  Rather than cross three lanes and turn back left with another U-turn, I cut off to the right, and make the first right again, to loop along the rough back street.  Motor scooters and three wheeled carts dominate the traffic along this rough road of auto supply stores and shabby restaurants.  I do the two-kilometer loop, turn right and right again and I’m back on the high street.  Slowly, and now utterly confused, I somehow manage to ride by the bike shop again.  

With that I hang up.  Frustrated, determined to master this modest task, I lock my jaw and repeat the loop around one more time.  It was, of course, right behind the flatbed truck.  Having arrived, the rest was easy.