In the Trough

Gather round!! It's story time from Japan! This one's pretty good, folks:

Last night was Megan's goodbye party and my welcome party. Tons of students came and we had a great time eating yummy food, chatting, and drinking. At the end of the night I caught the last train back to my station, Obukuro, and was walking home when I realized-- I had left my apartment key in the office. I kinda panicked and had no idea what to do. I went back to the ｓｔａｔｉｏｎ to check and see if there was another train going back to Kita Koshigaya, where I figured I could check with blind hope to see if the office wasn't locked for some reason. But no trains back to Kita Koshi. So I set out on foot, walking down the train tracks for a solid 45 minutes from Obukuro station to Kita Koshigaya station. No more trains were running, so I wasn't too worried about walking on the tracks, though it did prove to be tricky at times and I got a little nervous when the tracks turned into an overpass, high above and quite far away from any real land. Eventually I got there, and sure enough, the office was all-kinds-of locked. So, I saw no other option than to spend the night in none other than my trusty neighborhood net cafe. Rented a booth and got a few hours of collective zzz's in the recline-y chair. There was even complementary disposable toothbrushes and toothpaste in the bathroom!

I Ｌｅｆｔ around 10 the next morning because I figured nothing would be open on a Sunday before then anyway. AEON was still deserted and on lock down, so I picked up my phone that I had done all the paperwork for the previous day, but not had time to come back and activate. Too bad it was brand new and sans any of my co-worker's numbers. I ended up hanging around Kita Koshigaya, calling and checking the Aeon office with avid frequency, until 3:30pm when I finally ran into my co-workers going in to the building. I had been wearing the same clothes (complete with tights, ugh) for almost 40 hours along with my contact lenses at that point and was feeling pretty bedraggled, helpless, and alone. My co-workers felt really bad for me and I just felt like an idiot. I got my keys headed back home to shower and collapse.

And I will never forget my key again.

The End.