Game Face On written by Teresa Bratton an expat living in Suzhou

Okay, you all know what I'm talking about. You know the “Game Face” that you put on when you are finally forced to make that trip to Auchan or Carrefour that you've put off for two weeks. With utter defeat, you decide you've stretched the supplies as far as you can and you ready yourself for the throngs of people, the shoving, the staring, the inability to find anything and the wonderful smells you will be forced to inhale. If you are like me, you can no longer get your husband or children to join into this dreaded chore. They conveniently always have some excuse and leave it to you to go into battle alone; they have no sympathy for what you have to go through to fill their hungry bellies... You sluggishly make your way to the escalator and you put on your most stoic “game face”. On the way up you are stared at, whispered about and nudged to the side. Once inside the store, if you have had time to fine-tune your skills, you maneuver your trolley through the aisles with the concentration of a Samurai warrior. If you are new to the experience, you meekly try to keep to the side and just concentrate on one item at a time without losing your mind. After getting through the dreaded meat department, sloshing through the sticky soda aisle, and picking through the pitiful produce...you take a place in the check out line. There once again if you look around you will see people looking at you like you must have just won the million-dollar lottery—they can’t imagine how one family could need so many supplies. You feel the heavy guilt about the junk food that is piled onto the few healthy items; you wish you could make them understand how hard it is to make a meal with foreign supplies! That's why you are forced to supplement your family's diets with potato chips and Oreo cookies! You feel like digging through and pulling out the broccoli you just bought, and waving it in the faces of those looking at you with disapproving eyes. Once at the register you bag your own groceries and then pray that the cashier will know how to use a foreign credit card. As it is handed over you get that look from her...that astonished, “Now what do I do with this?” look...you know the one. You point to the correct machine and with a firm voice and much encouragement, state...“Keyi, Keyi...mei wenti.” You tell yourself that if you adamantly refuse to give her cash...she will finally relent and accept your card like they have a thousand times before. After she swipes your card so fast and violently that you are surprised it’s still in one piece, she hands it back and you are ALMOST home free! Just one more trip down the escalator and you can get out! You decide that juggling 20 bags would be better than taking the trolley back down and you load up then head for exit. Okay...game face back on...don’t look anyone in the eye and DO NOT let the snickering and whispering get you upset...freedom is just five minutes away... Here’s where something changes--- usually I make it down and out with the same old “I’m almost out, I’m almost out...” attitude. But what happens when your arms are full of grocery bags and the Moving Monster (this refers to an inclined escalator) starts eating you up starting with your wandering shoestring? If you are like me, you completely panic! You jerk and jerk your foot, while stupidly holding onto your groceries...(after all, that was a lot of work and you don’t want to drop the precious eggs...) The jerking doesn't help and you are almost at the end and are going to be swallowed up! Since you are all alone and you are the foreigner with the “game face” on, you are just stuck! UNLESS...just one of those local people that you thought were so unapproachable reaches down and with a couple of jerks, frees you from being sucked into that dark land of people eaten up by the Moving Monster! Was it easy?...No...was he successful on the first try?...No. Did he give up and just laugh and snicker?...No, thank goodness...one of the many people that I felt were staring daggers into my back just became my hero. So next time you prepare to go to the store and you work on getting on your "game face" on... you may want to reconsider and add a little smile to it—you never know when you may need saving from the Moving Monster—and that “game face” sure isn’t going to win you any heroes! In closing, also make sure that you tie your shoelaces BEFORE getting onto the escalator.