Sleepless In Shanghai…. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days. And oddly enough, it’s through no fault of my own. In my old room 332, there is a couple of people. And this couple of people have an infant, perhaps a few months old. You can’t be a total heathen and blame an infant for crying, and I don’t either! I blame the infant’s parents. And that is because while the infant..and myself are trying to sleep, the parents of this infant are busy at work trying to make yet another infant. Which wakes up the current infant, who in turn..wakes me up. So out comes the industrial strength earplugs. They kind you squish together, and then you stick them in the appropriate holes in your head. From there you simply wait until they swell up and 99% of the noise from infants and infant making parents, fade away and life is good again. So this has been dealt with in a reasonable and non-violent manner, which of course is always good. But then came another member of the KAJMFS (Keep American Jazz Musicians From Sleeping) Club. You may ask (if indeed you are still here), “Oh God, what happened to him this time?” Well load up on the popcorn and a good stiff drink and you will find out… I was in a Vermont ski lodge getting all cozy with Jay Aston and Cheryl Baker, the two hot blondes from the 1981 version of the British vocal group, Bucks Fizz. They were laying on either side of me on a big bear rug, feeding me chocolate covered strawberries and telling me how they were going to take me to “The Land Of Make Believe.” Life couldn’t be better. I was in my Hugh Hefner robe, and whenever a piece of chocolate from the strawberries would fall off, they would take turns licking it off of me. I am not the type who would deny them this simple pleasure in life, because that’s the kind of guy that I am. Inside the cabin was a roaring fire, outside the cabin was about three feet of fresh snow, pretty much trapping the three us all inside for a few days. The cold clean air made you feel alive and in the distance was the sound of native drums thumping away. As I was taking this all in, then thought struck me between the eyes, “Native Drums?!?! At a Vermont Ski Lodge?!?!?” The thumping was come in at the speed of one thump per second now. Cheryl looked at Jay and said, “Yep, here it goes again. C’mon Jay let’s get out of here. We don’t need some sad-sack like this who suffers from premature..awakenings!” I yelled, “No! You can’t do this! You promised to take me to “The Land Of Make Believe!” Then Jay gave me a nasty look and said, “Tell you what, lover boy. Why don’t you go there yourself..and ‘make believe’ we are there with you! Hahahah!” Cheryl then gave Jay a nudge in the ribs and said, “Good one, Jay! Hahaha! Let’s go.” And they did. If you remember correctly, the last time I was awakened at this hour, it was by a very cute young Chinese girl who had the wrong room and then fled down the hall as if there was a mob chasing her with flaming torches. But now, whomever it was who was now pounding on my door, did so with evil intentions. I stumbled to the door and opened it up… to a man. A very drunk man. A very drunk, angry man. A very drunk angry, middle-aged Chinese man to be more precise. He looked at me and started yelling. Of course he was yelling at me in Chinese, so it was his loss.I was looking for sub-titles. It seemed like he was ready for some type of violence, so I took a step back and sized up my opponent. I quickly realized that even if he did try to take a swing at me, he would probably miss and end up knocking himself out. And he kept yelling at me the entire time. One thing I have observed about the way the Chinese speak is that it is usually an almost non-stop flow of Chinese words. When they pause for a moment to take in some vital oxygen, that is a cue for the listener to say, “Mmm!” before the rest of the onslaught continues. Chinese talk show radio is the perfect proof of this. However..and this is quite important..when they are angry at someone, the entire manner of speech changes into these one syllable barks that have a two second pause before each one. It sort of reminds me of Woodstock the little bird of Peanuts fame whose vocabulary consisted of “!~!!~!~!!!”. Of course I would have preferred Charlie Browns teacher who sounded like a trombone, but you can’t have what you want all of the time. Otherwise I’d still be with Jay and Cheryl. Where was I? Oh yeah..drunk Chinese guy who wanted to bop me. Ok. So I’m just standing there with this drunken Bruce Lee, and wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t have to wait very long. For suddenly he bolted past me and into my room itself. I had no idea what he was looking for, because all he could see was a messed up bed, a laptop and a pile of stinky clothes with wavy lines coming off of them laying in a corner chair. As nice as this place is, there are no dressers. Then suddenly there came even more of those abrupt nasty Chinese words floating through the air. Except there was one difference, these came from a female who was now standing in the doorway, hurling Chinese verbal abuse from every angle at my non-invited guest. This was getting to be a bit too much for a 4am room party. But being the always kind host of which I am famous for in several continents, I thought that perhaps I could offer them each a cup of nice hot tea. It seems to me that I had recently purchased some that may solve everyone’s problem. Well..at least mine. But then she did something I have only seen before in old movies. She came in the room, grabbed my new friend by the back of his collar and dragged him physically out of the room and into Room 334, next to mine. The door was open and at the same time she threw him into it, but before he could get out of ass-kicking rage, she placed a hard one on his drunk Chinese pooper. I was greatly impressed with that move! He obviously ricocheted off a suitcase and landed with a sound that would have made Spike Jones quite envious. Having done that, she looked over to me with a look that needed no explanation. I simply nodded and left her to go take care of business. I’m not sure what happened in there after that, but I knew one guy who wasn’t going to keep me awake playing the Bedspring Polka all night. Well, actually..and sadly..I knew two guys like that. But I really didn’t count because I had been sleeping before this. Just ask Jay and Cheryl. One thing is quite certain, never underestimate the power of a Chinese woman. While the exterior may seem sweet and unassuming, if you rile them up, they will kick your ass in ways you never could imagine an ass could ever be kicked. And this very topic will be the subject of my next travelogue. Stay tuned and don’t forget to have your friends spayed and neutered..or something like that. Ask Bob Barker, I’m too tired to type. Have I mentioned that I haven’t had much sleep recently? As Always, Snoozer Quinn https://youtube/watch?v=j9TX9syyqnc
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:39:43 +0000
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