Wednesday with a Beijing Twist

There are days that should proceed  according to plan because the plan is so mundane.  Today is Wednesday and it should simply have unfolded according to plan,  but today it was served with a Beijing twist. 

It started with a one transfer subway trip to Bible Study with a great group of women. Then a two transfer subway trip to the Beijing United Family Clinic in the CBD to pick up a prescription, and since I was in the area of a DVD shop and the best Jenny Lou's grocery I picked up a few DVDs and did a little shopping.  As I was checking out at Jenny Lou's I spotted Gillette Foamy Shaving Cream in the red can, proud product of the USA.  Tom has been looking for weeks for shaving cream, so I picked up a can.

Now in every subway station there is a security check manned with two guards.  All bags must go through the x-ray machine and if the guards think you should open your coat, that's what you do.  It's been our experience that as foreigners we get only light scrutiny.  Well, not today! The the x-ray screener saw something suspicious in one of my bags, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it could be:  my Bible?  oh, perhaps 6 months worth of new drugs! surely, it wasn't the paper towels or frozen pizza.  As I stand there scratching my head I open the bags and they have a look.  Low and behold the guard pulls out the shaving cream.  The three of us have a poorly understood conversation before I get lead off to the ticket booth where the agent on duty laughs hysterically before calling in a more senior guard who explains to me in broken English that I cannot take shaving cream on the subway.  I put on my best foreign and helpless old lady look, only to no avail, then I whimper  "how am I supposed to get home?"  The first guard suggested the bus, now I'm laughing hysterically.

Well, I went back outside into the smog and pollution and I flagged down a taxi:  Wednesday with a Beijing twist.  My trip home turned into a 45 minute taxi ride in the above ground pollution. And a simple can of shaving cream cost 56.80 RMB plus the 26 RMB taxi ride; in USD that's about $13.80.  I think once this can of shaving cream is empty, Tom will just have to grow a beard!