Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 2

Two hours pass.  Then, a rapping on the window.  This time there is a different old tiny Chinese lady (redundant, I suppose) waiting in the stairwell.  She is holding a small red bag.  Again I find myself the recipient of a blast of squealing Chinese; again, I find myself shrugging and grinning like a fool.  She tries to say it every way she can, and I play charades for the second time that day.  This woman caresses her own hair, the way a small child plays with a doll, and points to the door. What?  Does she want a haircut?  I wonder.  Or maybe she has come to bargain for a lock of Lily’s hair.  Shrug.  Grin.  She laughs, at me I assume, but it is all very adorable, the way she turns to hide her face as she giggles.  Finally she gets down to business, reaches into her red bag and withdraws a large white bottle of Glucosamine Sulfate pills, and I immediately assume she wants to give them to me.  “Thank you,” I try to say.  “But I already have some.”  Which, oddly, is true.  But she is still yapping and gesturing and hiding her laughter when I shrug.  Then, looking more closely at the bottle, it all makes sense – she needs my help!  The bottle is in English, no Chinese characters to be seen.  She’s holding up fingers now.  So I read the label and it is my turn to act, so I mimic the procedure – eating motion, swallowing motion.  “Er” I say, but I sound like a growling pirate – I can’t even say the number two in this damn language.  But she gets it.  She laughs again.  And then, as if on cue, up the stairs comes a Chinese man in a pink button-down.  He walks straight up to our door and knocks.  He has come to inform us that our floor is dripping…

"Related" posts:

1. Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 1
2. Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 3
3. Chinese Alarm Clock: Epilogue