Wherein I Visit the Post Office

Today I spent most of the day at work monitoring oven temperatures.  It's like I work in a bakery!  I also got to be the one to say "I see wrinkles!" and I got complimented on my cleaning skills.  I was a pretty good day indeed.

On the way home I had to stop for gas.  I have never stopped f gas in Japan before.  I couldn't find a self-service station quickly enough to not be afraid that I was going to run out of gas, so I stopped at a full-service station.  And indeed, full-service it was.  They told me how far to pull up, then while I waited they asked if I had any trash in the car and if I wanted my windows washed.  Then they told me how far to back up before pulling out, and then ran to the road to help guide me safely back into traffic.  What fun!

After that, I wanted to sop at the post office to see how much it would cost to send my package overseas.  The girl at the desk was clearly startled by my foreign appearance, and flustered probably because she was afraid I couldn't speak Japanese.  But after a lot of formalities, I was able to convey that yes, I do want to be signed up for the city marathon and also a tennis tournament.  Sorry--for anyone who doesn't know, that bit refers to some things I got roped into the first time I was in Japan (in high school) because I just smiled and nodded a lot and got signed up for things I didn't mean to.

So, I learned how much it will cost for my package, and it's a surprise package for Mikey and the kids so I hope they don' read this blog.  But during the conversation, we did get to the part where if I send at the cheapest rate, the package isn't insured, but the girl did't know the English word for insured and I didn't know the Japanese word, and suddenly about 10 employees were scrambling to find it on their smartphones and the girl was frantically looking around at her paperwork trying to see if it said it in both languages anywhere.  At long last, I announced that I have a Japanese-English dictionary on my phone, and I looked it up.  And sure enough, it meant insurance.

Then from the post office parking lot, I couldn't turn right, so I took some back roads home which were fun because they were nearly all 2-way streets about the width of 1.15 cars.  I even ended up on the back roads in my own neighborhood, where I was not surprised to see the familiar stray telephone poles and mangy sea-cats licking various strange puddles from the road.  It was an exciting car ride and I wish I could have taken a video because dodging telephone poles and mangy cats is like driving in a video game.

Here's another t-shirt.

I like to consider myself somewhat of a Fake Master.