Last train woes... Part 2.

Trains in Japan are never late--unless someone has thrown themselves onto the tracks. Thankfully, I live on a rather nice [private!] line and therefore people don't [or haven't yet] decided to end it all on it. [Rumor is that if you kill yourself by train, your family gets charged for the repairs and clean-up needed. This is why people kill themselves on the Chuo line, because it's old and doesn't cost as much to repair. At least that's the rumor. It is true, though, that if the Chuo is running behind there's a pretty damn good chance that someone committed suicide.] When you see movies, such as the Bourne Supremacy, where characters jump in front of trains to escape the bad guys because they've looked at the train schedule and know exactly when the next one will come, keep in mind that that scenario would only be possible in Japan. Let's just say, I would only feel safe [reasonably safe, that is] jumping on the tracks to get away from the bad guys in Japan. [Although maybe not on the Chuo.]

Movie night this week was held at F.'s house in Soshigaya-Okura. After some popcorn, a grapefruit Chu-Hi and some conversation following The Conversation, I had to walk rather quickly to the station to catch the last train. [Which, incidentally, is at 12:50 AM.] F. had given me a mission for my way home: Drop her videos at the video store.

It's important to note that in Japan, there's no slot in the door of the video store. There's no box to drop the videos. You have to actually go into the store, possibly wait in line, hand the videos to the clerk and then wait for them to scan the videos and thank you. I personally think this policy is rather inefficient, especially if you're in a rush.

At 12:43 I get to the video store. There are two clerks working and they're both helping what I can only assume to be lonely customers. One of the customers was, I assume, having some kind of problem with his card and the other one must have been asking stupid questions. I say this because he already had his videos in hand, money had already changed hands, yet he was still standing there talking to the clerk. At 12:43 in the morning, who stands there and talks to the damn clerk?!

When the lonely guy finally finished, it was 12:46 by the video store clock. I was still about 7-10 minutes from the station--which doesn't count the time to get the ticket and get up the stairs to the platform. I slammed the videos down on the counter and said, rather loudly, "Dencha! Dencha!"* The clerk gave me a perplexed look. Clearly no one had EVER slammed videos on the counter and yelled, "Dencha! Dencha!" After what was probably 10 seconds--but felt like 2 precious minutes--I screamed, "Hii!" and turned around and ran [RAN!] out the door. Running down the street, I passed the lonely guy, who seemed to be looking for someone else to talk to.

I ran, zig zagging around people and puddles of spit on the ground, until I couldn't run anymore. I walked for a little while and then started to run again. Finally the station was in sight--with a train passing. That can't be my train, I thought to myself. I ran past the man selling sweet potatoes and up to the ticket machines while people were pouring out of the station. I overpaid for a ticket [it's only 130 yen from Soshigaya to my station, but for some reason the machine didn't like my 10 yen coins and in the hurried confusion, I hit 150 by mistake...] and started the mad dash through the turn styles and up the escalator. Without fail, any time I try to run up an escalator in this country [which I've done a few times] I fall. Since this day is like all the others, I fall on the escalator. Luckily, the superhuman ability to bounce back up that I discovered on the ski slopes works just as well on escalators and I make it to the top without too much harm. When I get to the top, I'm out of breath and more aware of my left hand than I usually am--damn escalator!--and there's no train in sight. No headlights, no brake lights, no people, no fucking train. There's a station attendant walking towards me sweeping up trash. I make the international umpire gesture for, "Safe!" to this man, who mimics it back to me. [I don't have any idea why I made this gesture, but apparently he knew what I meant...] Cursing, I walk [WALK!] back down the escalator.

When I get to the turn styles, the damn thing beeps at me and starts saying something in Japanese when I try to go through. Of course, in Japan, you can easily just push through the laughable guards on the turn styles, which is what I do. I go to the station attendant booth and put down my ticket. In a very forceful voice, the old man says, "Where you go?!" I respond, "Kyodo." Of course, he's looking at me funny because I bought a ticket that would've taken me farther than Kyodo. The attendant from the platform shows up and explains to the old man that I missed the train. The old guy gives me my money back and I walk back past the sweet potato man to look for a taxi.

The cabs are parked around the corner. Because the travel gods are not smiling upon me, I pick the only cab with a lunatic driver who has the heat cranked to what must be 40 degrees while chain smoking with the windows up. I say, "Kyodo eki," and then wakarimasen my way through the rest. It cost 1220 yen to go two stations by cab.

The moral? When you're trying to catch the last train and your friend wants you to drop videos, a polite, "Fuck off," will suffice.

*"Train! Train!"