The mere fact that I have been walking around the streets of Japan looking like a hayseed with ill fitting shorts and sweat stained tops does not prevent me from unleashing my inner fashion police. (I am in a foreign country; sex with a tall dark stranger -- or anyone, for that matter -- doesn:t count, and I get a pass for looking like shit.)
My son mistakenly thought my running critique was an ethnically motivated condemnation of an entire people.
Me: `I`ve seen way too many women wearing those hideous stirrup pants we used to wear in the early nineties.`
Matt (and here I may be paraphrasing, even exaggerating, just a little bit): `So Japanese women are vile, uncivilized people who don`t know how to dress?`
Me: `No, that:s not what I said. But the lady across the street over there, she has a lousy sense of style.`
Matt: `Just want to make sure you are aware of what motivates your criticism.`
Feeling defensive, I explained to Matt that I was well aware of what motivated my criticism. Stirrup pants are an eyesore, and I would think so even if I saw someone wearing them back home in my very own neighborhood. At the very least, they are so yesterday, and would be even if it weren:t for the havoc being caused by that fucking international date line (FIDL). To prove the purity of my motivations, I pointed to a woman approaching us on the sidewalk, noting how chic she looked. Especially compared to the woman walking a few paces behind her in stirrup pants.
Matt let up on me, at least for the moment, which, to tell you the truth, is no fun.
Me: `But what`s up with no wifi?` One of the most technologically savvy countries in the world -- the place that gave us Sony -- does not offer Internet access to the general public. `It`s a disgrace.`
Matt: `They are not bad people just because there is no wifi.`
Me: `I didn:t say they were.`
Okay, well maybe I sort of did, but bad judgment at Pearl Harbor notwithstanding, I expect better of the Japanese. Maybe I:m just bitter and ornery without email access. Maybe, as I suggested to my children, I feel I have a duty to my blog reading public, and hate letting them down by going so many days without publishing my newsy little reports about my trip. I keep cranking them out, but without my regular audience, I`ve been forcing my kids to read them on my laptop screen (which is probably why they both chuckled about the notion of letting my audience down, assuring me that my three loyal followers would survive the week). Yeah, give or take a day. FIDL.
Bottom line: the people here are -- if I may overgeneralize in a positive way -- quite pleasant and, despite the incredible heat and humidity, we are enjoying our visit immensely, looking forward to travelling around the country starting today. But let`s face it: for people of all nationalities, petty incessant complaining is sometimes a necessary evil, and though I might have to bite my tongue the next time I spot a pair of stirrup pants, I have worn my son down on the Internet issue. He is going to tidy up his apartment so I can go there today to post my posts, just to shut me up. I`m not proud; a win is a win.
And when I sit in Starbucks later today wondering why there is no wifi, I will not consider it a crisis of international proportions. After all, it pales in comparison to you know what.
Note: I did go to Matt:s apartment. He did not tidy it up. I could not connect my laptop to the Internet. So here I am in a smoke filled Internet cafe retyping blog number three, leaving numbers one and two for another time (my half hour is almost up). Which is why you may not yet be aware of my fucking international date line fetish. Oh well.
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