Cranky Meets Crankier

Our Ikea mattress is terrible. It really is. I've had a better nights sleep in a sleeping bag lying atop a sand bar next to a river. So in an effort to salvage this mattress (which wasn't cheap, in case you are wondering) I go back to Ikea to buy a memory foam mattress topper. This is my sixth trip to Ikea in less than three weeks. The music selection is terrible. Huey Lewis is extolling the, "Power of Love." Mothers and daughters (strangely, it seems every customer in Ikea today is a mother/daughter duo) mill around like they are visiting the Louvre. More importantly, they keep getting in my way as I try to snake through the Ikea showroom maze. Unnecessary umlauts burn my eyes. I stop trying to pronounce the stupid names of items. I just point and let the Ikea employees figure out what I need. I am on a mission. I need to escape Huey Lewis. I need to escape umlauts. I need to get away from mothers and daughters. And I need to come home with a mattress topper. So I buy this thing. It's not cheap. It's a queen-size: 80" x 60" x 3". It's rolled up like a giant cigar. It's kind of heavy and certainly unwieldy. I put this thing over my shoulder and go up two flights of Escalators. For the first time during this miserable Ikea visit, I am able to exhale CO2 instead of flames. The upside of hauling around a 60", 30 lbs cigar is that people scurry aside when you pass. It creates instant personal space. For a split second I consider carrying it around all the time while in Hong Kong.
There is no line at the taxi stand and I lock eyes with the cabbie at the front of the line. His eyes break from mine and fixes on the mattress pad. I give it a squeeze to show him it's flexible and won't beat up his taxi. He asked me where I'm going. I don't understand him. He asks a couple of times and I'm finally figure out and tell him. He looks on skeptically as I push, bend and position the mattress topper diagonally in the back seat. It fits but I can't reach the seat belt because I can't really move. Immediately after we make the first turn a truck stops in the middle of the street and a guy with a hand truck rolls a stack of boxes to load onto the truck. Right then and there, the cabbie drops a couple of F-bombs like he was born and bred in South Philly. This gets my attention. I give him a good looking over. Of course, I only see the back of his head and his eyes in the rear view mirror. He has angry eyes. So I look away to the back of his head. His roots are white. His ends are black. The hair in between is sort of reddish-brown. I think I have some insight on why he's so angry. I would be angry if my hair looked like that. Once we get moving again, he's hitting the brakes HARD. It sounds like the front end of the car is slamming against the road every time he presses the brakes. His driving is as angry as his eyes. We finally get back to the apartment. All in all, it takes less than 20 minutes and the fare is $37.50HK. The cabbie turns off the meter, looks back at me and for a second I can't do anything. The mattress pad has shifted and I am really pinned in. So for a few, silent moments we just trade angry looks. I am finally able to wiggle and create enough space to reach my wallet. I hand him a fifty. He gives me a ten back and glares. I glare back. There is silence. It's not worth it. I just get out of the taxi and yank out the mattress pad. Before I even hoist it back on my shoulder, a resident at my complex hops into the cab. I just shake my head and wish her good luck under my breath.