Only in Japan

ときどき、給食はちょーだめだよ！
Today we had squid for school lunch. Rather, everyone but me had squid. If that wasn't bad enough, the teacher next to me told me that tomorrow's lunch is whale meat!
Guess who's bringing a PBJ sandwich tomorrow!

After school today, I wanted to go to the foreign foods store to see if I could pick anything up for our ghetto Thanksgiving dinner we are having on Wednesday. But first, I had to go to the ATM. The ATM at my bank wasn't open (at 4:00 on a Monday - I almost screamed) so I went into 7-11. The ATM at 7-11 charges 105yen to withdraw, but despite this I am usually too lazy to go to my bank (5 minute walk from my house) when there's a Sevvies 30 seconds from my house. Since I use these ATMs a lot, I can pretty much do it with my eyes closed, right? Well, today was payday, so I thought I'd print out a receipt to see my now amazingly huge bank balance... It wasn't until I had driven 45 minutes into Niigata that I realized I had the receipt but I DIDN'T TAKE THE MONEY! Damn it, we're talking about $100 here!

I made it to the foreign foods store (which takes credit cards - not many businesses do in Japan) only to find that they have nothing even resembling something we might want for Thanksgiving. So I picked up some Swiss Miss, Junior Mints and salsa and muttered the whole way back to 7-11 in Maki about what a waste of my time this whole afternoon had been. I was getting very anxious about using my limited Japanese to communicate my problem as well.

Anyway, I walked in and waited for the cashier to finish what she was doing before I told her what I had done... She understood and walked me over to the ATM where there is a phone that connects directly to the bank. She told the man on the phone my problem then asked me if my Japanese was ok-enough to talk on a phone. I told her I wasn't sure, but I'd try anyway. The dude on the phone asked me which bank I belonged to, how much money I lost and what time I was there - I can answer that! Then he asked to talk to the lady again and after she hung up she told me that no one had taken the money and that they were going to wire it back into my account tomorrow. WOOHOO! I bowed like never before and thanked her a million times and on the way out I mentioned how embarassed I was - she was oh-so lovely about it all. Seriously, ONLY in Japan...

After that I decided I should hit the gym to work off all the frustrations I'd experienced between the hours of 4-6 today. And now I'm in my warm, clean apartment making dinner. Then I'm taking a shower and going to bed before my 10:00 curfew.