Episode 5: The Benny Story

This is the memoir version of the day my dog dragged a table through the streets of Shanghai.

By the start of 2007, six months after I’d quit my job to move to China with no move in sight, we were going broke.

Coincidentally, my former director of marketing called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted a part time job. I jumped at the opportunity; because I dug her the most, I needed the money and I secretly figured I’d be coming out of retirement since we’d probably never move to China.

Fast forward a bit to March of that same year. One day, I was sitting at my desk writing a whitepaper about the benefits of applying RFID technology to logistics and supply chain management (I know, ho hum) and my mind started to wander. This time it wandered a little further than usual and I started to get really pissed off that I was sitting there writing a whitepaper when I could be kickin’ it on my fabulous Chinese adventure.

I’d worked myself into such a frenzy that I decided I would tell Robby exactly how I felt. So on my way home from work I called him, and the conversation went something like this:

“Hey, Dear, how’s your day going?” I asked.

“Good, good, just pluggin’ away,” he said, clearly not interested in the conversation.

“Are you busy?” I asked with trepidation.

“Always.” He was a million miles away. I might as well have been Charlie Brown’s teacher talking into the phone.

At this point I should have just said good bye and picked it back up when he got home, but me not being able to let things go, I let ‘er rip.

“You know what, Robby, I’m sick and tired of our life being on hold because we’re moving to China. We’ve been ‘moving’ to China for close to a year now. I don’t know when you’re gonna get the hint…we aren’t moving to China!”

There was a long pause.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Are you done?” he said.

“For now.”

“Well, you can think whatever you want, Jennifer, but we are moving to China. I’m sorry that things aren’t moving at a pace suitable for you and you’re frustrated waiting for the momentous occasion for us to make the move, but we absolutely are moving to China. Now, if you don’t mind, some of us have work to do.”

Click.

* * *

Later that day I went through the motions of every Mom in America. I picked the kids up from school, I fed them a healthy snack and I monitored them playing “mermaids” in the backyard, when I was really a million miles away.

So this is what it’s come to?

“Mommy, can I have a play date with Janelle tomorrow?” Grace pleaded.

“I don’t know sweat heart. I don’t know her Mommy and I don’t have her phone number to call and ask,” I replied, hoping she would forget about it and stop asking.

“She gave me her phone number at school,” she informed me as she headed inside to retrieve it from her Tinkerbell backpack. “Here it is…303–287–668.”

“I see. Well, the problem with that number is that it’s missing a number.”

“Can’t you just make up your own and call her?”

“No, honey, I can’t. That isn’t the way it works. Now go on and play with your brother while I start dinner. Dad’ll be home shortly.”

“Fine,” she huffed.

Jesus. An attitude like this as a kindergartener…?

* * *

As I thoughtfully prepared the family dinner, making sure it was not only colorful and nutritious, but also delicious, I felt the disdain for my husband well inside me. I poured myself a glass of wine hoping I could forget about it, to no avail.

“Mommy,” Willy interrupted my thoughts, “Daddy’s home!”

“OK, Buddy, go let him…,” before I could finish my sentence Willy had already turned and sped toward the front door. “Mommy, Mommy, Daddy has something! Daddy has something!” he exclaimed.

Startled, I turned away from my duties at the stove and looked out the back window. And there he was. A bundle of wrinkly black fur draped over Rob’s shoulder.

What has he done?

The kids went berserk. “What is it Dad? Is it a dog? Is it a dog? What kind of dog is it dad?”

I walked straight to Robby, blocked my way through the chaotic reaching arms of our 4 and 5 year-old kids, and grabbed the puppy out of his arms.

“Let me have him,” I said in a lowered voice, as I scooped him into my arms and cradled him like a baby.

The kids continued to go nuts with questions. “What kind of dog is it?”

I looked at his smooshed in, wrinkly face. “I think he looks like a bull mastiff.”

“Let’ call him Benny after Benny the Bull from Dora,” Grace exclaimed. “Yeah!” Willy added.

“That’s perfect,” I said.

“It’s better than what Erika suggested on my way here,” Rob added. Erika is one of Rob’s younger sisters.

“Oh, what was that?” I asked.

“Divo…short for divorce,” he said, then he looked at me for approval.

“No divo today,” I said. I gave him a one-armed hug and whispered in his ear, “Thanks, this is just what I needed.”

“So, you’re not mad?”

“Nope, but if we ever do move to China, you’re in charge of figuring out how to get him there. Not me.”

“It’ll be my pleasure, Dear.”

***

6 months later…

The day Payton, our 12 year old cat who was also lovingly known as Satan, and Benny, our 150 lb English Mastiff puppy were sprung from a week of quarantine with Chinese authorities is a day I’ll never forget.

It was the first day I’d seen the sun in the week since we’d moved to China. And though the sky wasn’t really blue — it was more of a dusty, slate gray; and the sun wasn’t really yellow — it was more of a pale yellow disk that dangled in the sky — the sight of it still brought a smile to my face. I was happy to know that the sun actually did shine in Shanghai — sometimes.

Benny whimpered in the background while I bent down and rescued Payton from her cat carrier. “Hissssss,” she hissed. First she took a swat at me with open claws; then she disappeared under the couch.

Welcome home, cat.

I liberated Benny and he peed on my shoeless foot.

“Really?”

The look on Xiao Li’s face was a cross between confusion and fear. She was not impressed. She was even less impressed that she had to follow him around with a mop.

Since it was such a nice day, and I had a built-in baby sitter, I decided to take Benny for a walk.

As we walked down the sidewalk, I actually felt normal for the first time since moving to Shanghai — until I started paying attention to my surroundings.

I noticed every person coming toward us looked like they’d just seen Cerberus — the three headed monster-dog that guards the gates of hell. It took me a minute to register that I was walking that monster-dog. Some people moved to the very edge of the sidewalk and tip-toed past, while others trotted across the street to avoid us altogether. One guy on a motor scooter couldn’t keep his eyes off of him. As he rode past, eyes on Benny, he ran square into a street light which, in turn, caused a minor pile up of bicycles and other motor scooters.

Benny’s tail was tucked so far under him he was practically chewing on it. He was obviously as scared, or more of these news sights and sounds as people were of him. Ignoring his fear, I forced him to continue on. I wanted to take a walk. I needed to take a walk, so damn it, we were walking.

There were construction sites in every direction. Shirtless, and sometimes shoeless, men would appear from the center of huge clouds of dust, worked diligently with cigarettes dangling from their dry, heat-cracked lips. The “BANG” of wrecking balls blended with the constant “du-du-du-du-duh” of jackhammers made it seem like we were in the middle of Baghdad.

As we looped around the block behind our compound, I discovered a groovy outdoor promenade with shops and restaurants. There was a children’s arcade sandwiched between a wine shop and an organic veggie store. The thrill of excitement pulsed through my body.

Civilization?

Though most of the promenade was under construction, like everything else in Shanghai, I could tell that eventually this little area would be super cute — kind of like Pearl Street in Boulder, just China-style with a little more neon. Unfortunately, my feelings of excitement faded when I took a deep breath in — sewage. No matter how cute, the ever-present smell of sewage would ruin any attempt at dining al fresco.

We stumbled upon a coffee shop and I decided an iced latte would make the trip complete.

What to do with the dog?

I looked around and noticed some outdoor seating, so I tied Benny to one of the tables. “Sit,” I said. He obeyed and I went inside. I figured he’d be fine. After all, we’d been walking for a good ten minutes and he, being the laziest dog on the planet, combined with the heat, guaranteed that he was ready for a rest.

I walked up to the Barista and said, “Ni Hao.”

“Ni Hao,” she replied with a smile, and handed me a menu.

I said a quick thanks to God that they provided a picture menu for painless ordering. I pointed at what appeared to be an iced latte then I turned to my right to check on my tethered pooch.

Why is he standing up?

I decided I needed to go out and tell him to sit, but I didn’t want the Barista to think I was leaving, so I pulled out 35 RMB ($5.00), placed it on the counter and pointed to the dog to let her know my intentions. She looked at me like I was crazy. I turned toward where he had been standing and noticed he was gone. Puzzled, I looked out the opposite window and still didn’t see him.

A little butterfly fluttered in my gut. I walked outside and to my chagrin; Benny was rounding the bend about 200 meters away with the metal table cracking the whip around him.

SHIT!

All I heard was the grating of metal scraping on concrete (a sound that still haunts me to this day). I screamed, “NO, BENNY, NO!” and I took off running after him as any good pet owner would do.

Mind you, I was not equipped for a half mile race. There I was in my $2.50 Old Navy flip flops and a skirt flapping in the wind chasing a 150 lb monster through the streets of Shanghai! Crowds of people formed along the roadside like it was an Olympic marathon. High-pitched “Benny’s” came from nowhere.

As I ran after my dog I couldn’t quiet my mind.

Fuck! Oh Fuck! What the fuck!

And then I was horror stricken.

The locals. They’re so scared of him. What will they do? Wait, to hell with them. What will I do if he gets hit by a car? He’s like my third child.

After a few minutes I arrived at my apartment building and there was Benny, just chillin’ by the door, panting with a long string of drool dangling from his jowls. I noticed right away that the table was no longer attached to his leash.

What happened to the table?

“Forget the table,” I said, aloud as I grabbed him and ran into the building.

By the time I’d reached the seventh floor I was dizzy and felt like I was going to puke. The cocktail of confusion, frustration, anger and embarrassment was not sitting well. Besides, I hadn’t been prepared to have my heart rate elevated from resting to, well, not resting, either.

Once we got inside, I called Robby. I was certain he’d have some cheerful words of encouragement, we’d have a chuckle then I’d collapse in a heap on my bed and take a well-deserved nap.

I dialed the number and he answered on the first ring. After I explained what happened, he simply started laughing at me. My blood pressure rose. He clearly didn’t understand how mortified I was. So I tried to explain it to him with a bit more exaggeration.

“Listen, Honey,” he said through muffled laughter. “I understand you’re embarrassed, but you’re gonna have to go do the walk of shame, find that table and bring it back to the coffee shop.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “I’m never going back there again.”

“Uh, no. Jerry has been listening to the whole conversation and is worried the girl will call the cops.” Jerry was Rob’s colleague who was a Shanghai cop in a former life.

“The cops? For what?”

“Uh, for stealing their table. What else?”

Images of Jack Bauer’s hand from season 6 of 24 flashed before my eyes. I was so mad that he was right and that he laughed at me and that the idea of talking this out with someone only made sense if I could actually talk to someone — in the right language. I collected the kids, Xiao Li and my Chinese-English dictionary and headed out in search of the table.

The four of us retraced my panic-stricken steps and sure enough, the table, sans the glass top that had been shattered all over the side walk, mangled in a heap right at the spot where Benny turned the corner.

I hoisted the remnants of the table onto my back and we made our way to the coffee shop.

After a painful negotiation with lots of pointing, waving of arms and confused looks, we agreed that I would go to a store and buy them a new table. Xiao Li called Driver Chen and the five of us were on our way to buy a new table.

Down and around the craziest of crazy back streets of Shanghai we pulled up to an unmarked building. Within five minutes we found the exact table and the price was labeled at 695 RMB (around $100).

Perfect-o.

I pulled out my wallet prepared to pay, but out of nowhere, Driver Chen walked up next to me and gently pushed my wallet back into my purse. He proceeded to stand in front of me like a barrier between me and the sales person and started to talk.

I had no idea what was going on. The conversation seemed heated.

What the hell is the problem now?

I just wanted to go home. Exhausted, I took a seat on a piece of faux-wicker patio furniture and watched Chen and the sales person go back and forth like I was watching a tennis match.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed both kids standing up on a porch swing with Xiao Li trying in vain to get them to sit down. Normally that type of behavior would have resulted in a time out, but I could only muster the energy to hide my face in shame and shake my head.

The heated table conversation went on for about fifteen minutes. When the voices settled, Chen walked up to me and handed me a piece of white tissue paper. It had 695 RMB crossed out and 580 RMB hand-written underneath it.

They were negotiating. He saved me 115 RMB — $20.

All that for twenty bucks?

Irritated, I pulled out my wallet, paid the lady with exact change, grabbed the kids and walked out in a huff. Chen and Xiao Li followed behind us schlepping the table.

Once we got into the car, and I was able to quiet my mind, I had a chance to reflect. I couldn’t figure out if it was part of his job to negotiate on my behalf or if it was part of his culture. Or was he just being loyal? Nice? Was everything negotiable in China?

Suddenly I was racked with guilt. Here was my new employee (who made the equivalent of $3500 USD per year)trying to do me a favor and I acted like a spoiled brat. There I was, willing to throw twenty dollars away just to make my life easier. My behavior was so typically, so painfully — American — so willing to pay for convenience just because I could.

When we finally arrived at the coffee shop, Driver Chen and Xiao Li assembled the new table, the kids played in an empty fountain, and I sat on the ground staring into space. The Barista happily assisted Chen and chatted with Xiao Li about who knows what.

When the table was finally assembled, we turned toward the car to drive home, but the Barista chased after us.

She tapped me on the shoulder, I turned toward her and she handed me a plastic cup with a condensation-soaked napkin wrapped around it. It was my latte. I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud.

After a long day, we’d arrived on the seventh floor. I dug around in my purse for my keys.

Hmm. No keys.

“Xiao Li?” I said, making a twisty-turny motion with my hand and pointing at the door.

“Mei you,” she said. (Pronounced May Yo — “No have”)

With a heavy sigh, I leaned my back against the door and slid down to the dusty ground. I looked at the kids with woeful eyes and they looked back at me. “Are we locked out, Mommy?” Grace asked.

“We are, Honey. We are locked out.”