Workity Work Work

Today I got up, put on the suit and headed out for Neyagawa. It has been ten years since I graced the pressed concrete halls of ole, Neyagawa station. Switching from car to car with Tatsuya as I threw up in each. Sleeping in front of the station, splattered with my own vomit, talking to random guys on bicycle. Being asked by my homestay mother, "Where did you sleep? The station? Ha ha ha."

I was there early, discovering that there were two exits, like I had said and been laughed at by my ridiculous supervisor. Not wanting to leave the station for fear I wouldn't be able to find the other teachers I was supposed to be meeting, and having had my phone cut off since I haven't been paid yet, I ate at McDonald's for the first time in a year or so. It is still bad.

We grouped. We met by chance, oh we chosen few teachers. We deemed worthy of Neyagawa and their experimental English program. One teacher, one school, they boldly assert. Three of us, by chance, had attended Kansai Gaidai, me one year ahead of the other two. "Did you meet your wife at Kansai Gaidai?" Our ridiculous supervisor, rife with indigestion, asked another in our party. "No." He answered. "We met later by coincidence." "That's funny, I met his wife at Kansai Gaidai." I offered wittily. What charm. What drollery. What man is this with $53 in the bank. Oh, did I crack wise.

I volunteered to do the demo lesson first. It was the present progressive form and 7 Boad of Ed workers were my students. Within mere minutes, dear reader, they were able to express that right now, in fact, our beloved Godzilla "is sleeping." I killed. As Randy Newman is known to have said, "We gonna ride it till we can't ride it no more." I am honored that you think of me as the Randy Newman of teaching. What could be more accurate. On to the elementary school lesson in which we learned the colors and then found them around the room. A hit. A hit. I sunk all of their proverbial battleships. On to the Q and A in Japanese. The college professor abused me with his fancy talk but I played it low. I played the humble yeoman. Oh uppity college professor with your housing stipend, do you look down on us so while we do the work that makes your back sore and your hands dirty? Forgive us, it is our burden. To the long extended statement by the earnest, mid-level employee that I mistook for a question and then stumbled about in the dark for a cogent answer, as if playing a real life game of Zork for the next, uncomfortable 5 minutes or so.

Inane supervisor. Victim of tomato ramen. Victim of bad fashion. Victim of your own dedication to being an asshole. How you did congratulate me so on my sheer awesomeness. Did I not tell you just last week, "Wind me up and I'll teach the shit out of that motherfucker." Was that not clear by my swagger, all over-worn suit and arthritic knees? Didn't you see it coming when I knew there were two exits to a station I hadn't been to in ten years? Ten years ago when you yourself were a bad student in a mediocre junior high. Didn't you know it when my wrinkle tie came in double Windsored and all of the other teachers thralled at my wisecracks? I ask you, dear supervisor, "Where the fuck be my money?"

One of these will be my new school. Singular. Sweet.