Beijing makes people do crazy stuff. I woke up this morning with this urge to reorganize my room so I can clear off the desk for a surface to draw.

The wind was blowing at 20mph and the windchill was 0°. I biked to the local market (which I like to call the “Commoners’ Market” for a more rustic feel) to pick up a bookshelf. The market sells authentic “MADE IN CHINA” stuff at real and bargainable “MADE IN CHINA” prices. I bought a not so pretty particle board/thin metal bookshelf for 50RMB, assembly required.

The unassembled box of stuff was almost as tall as me and longer than my bike. I took it outside of the market and stared at my teeny tiny fold up bike and thought to myself, “WTF am I going to do??” A Chinese man stood and observed while I stared back and forth at my bike and the big box for about 3 minutes in the crazy cold weather. Finally, he said, “It won’t fall!”

So I strapped the big box to the back of the bicycle. I peddled some and I pushed some. It was ridiculous.

I thought, at any moment, this thing is gonna pull an E.T. and go flying.