I Made a Scene

If you drove by a tree-lined quiet street in our city this afternoon, you might have seen a Chinese woman running in the middle of the road in a drizzling rain. She held a butchers’ knife high up in her hand and a black pause under her arm, screaming “stop, stop.” I assured you there was no violence involved in the scene. Either it was a scene made for a movie. That Chinese woman happened to be me!

Sienna just finished her piano lesson and wanted to linger at the house with Rachel. I was chatting with 8-year-old piano student K while playing on my new Razr phone. K and I both heard bell ringing sounds. We guessed it was ice cream truck and both looked outside of the window. I saw a beat-down van appearing from the street corner with some dull lettering on the outside, “it’s a knife sharpening truck!”

When I grew up, I always saw knife sharpening guy on a bicycle roaming around neighborhood. I only discovered this North American equivalence about 3 years ago. When we hear the bell, either Sienna gets her ice cream treat or we get our knife sharpened. I know our friend the piano teacher doesn’t have a properly sharpened knife. Last time when we included salmon sashimi in our dinner, I had to bring along our knife serviced by a knife sharpening truck like this one…

I ran outside standing on the driveway. The truck stopped for me; at least it seemed to me. I made gestures to the vehicle. Then I ran back into the house searching for the knife and rushed back out. The truck wasn’t there any more. It was moving slowly towards the other end of the street. That’s how the out-of-ordinary scene played out. I kept running after the truck with knife in my hand and shouting for it to stop. I would have chased it for another block. Then I realized how I was making a confusing and suspicious scene. If I didn’t stop the truck, somebody was going to come out and stop me…

I don’t understand this. The scene could have attracted the whole neighborhood and even the news media. And yet it didn’t help stopping the knife sharpening guy to server his one overly-enthusiastic customer. I, on the other hand, have not stopped laughing from the scene I created myself.