Mission Accomplished!

So Stephanie, Melissa (our roommate) and I all sleep in the same room. 3 snug bugs in a rug! (It's the only room with air conditioning.) So in order to make it feasible we needed to put Steph's bed up on cinder blocks. You have to understand that the majority of Mumbai is "under construction" and there are bricks laying around left and right. So we had been eyeing piles of bricks for days, trying to figure out how we were going to get some...."Can we purchase them from the construction guys?" "How would we ever explain to them that we want to buy bricks?" Finally we found the perfect site. It had a ton of bricks since they were laying the pavement on the street. So Stephanie and I, carrying two canvas bags, "inconspicuously" walk down the street. (There's no such thing as inconspicuous. We stand out like two sore thumbs.) So we pass the place where the guys are primarily working, and see 4 perfectly square cinder blocks. They are just sitting there in a pile of "trash" on the side of the road. So Steph goes, "quick, pick them up and put them in your bag!" This is all in broad daylight, though we had discussed going at night. So I'm trying to pick up these blocks that barely fit in our canvas bags, while she's keeping an eye out, watching. A man who we assume is the foreman begins walking over and we're thinking he's going to tell us to put them back. Meanwhile, we're oblivious of the whole crowd at the bus stop that is watching us. (Staring is completely acceptable in India.) So the foreman walks over, shakes his hand motioning "no problem" and waves down a rickshaw (small taxi) for us. We loaded the four heavy cinder blocks in the taxi and we were off. It was pretty funny. We were laughing. Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there type moments."