Next time, use your fingers

Yet another faux par on my part. My, how they do add up.

Our scene is set at lunchtime, or at least the when I choose to eat it. The hour between eleven and midday and hunger pains in my belly from the lack of breakfast I should have filled it with four hours earlier.

Breakfast in Japan is a rather dreary prospect at the best of times. With the lack of any kind of bread that isn’t sliced and bleached to within an inch of its life, and two kinds of cereal flakes, both of which taste like cardboard chips, the only real option is the Japanese version of rice, miso soup and natto. Call me westerner but the thought of rice as the start to my just doesn’t gel, especially when it is frequently the staple of the day’s other two meals. And natto, a revolting product made of fermented soy beans is possibly the most revolting substance ever to pass my lips. The beans are held together with sticky strands that remind me of seamen but smell like chemicals. I one discovered a packet of the stuff I’d left at the back of the fridge for several months and on opening it, it looked and smelt exactly the same. All of the good ALTs persevered with it until it gelled with their taste buds. I gave up after a week. It makes me oddly nostalgic for brunches and boyfriends.

And so lunchtime arrives early and greedily. On this day of blunders, I had homemade udon bento box in front of me, A cup of black, hideous coffee sat steaming to one side and a Frasier episode sat ready and waiting on my laptop (I am pretty sure that watching sitcoms at work is overtly frowned upon, but now that my work week consists of a single of hour of teaching over five days, I have given up trying to look busy. I have no idea what I am expected to do for the other 39 hours...sit in composed silence perhaps?). Suddenly I realized that I was sans chopsticks. A wave of panic rushed over me; the coffee, the noodles, Daphne...was the highlight of my dismal day to be cruelly taken from me?

Suddenly, I spied the container of chopsticks on my supervisor’s desk. They were the disposable kind, the kind that we westerners tap on the edge of the table before we break them in the hope that they will split evenly (this does NOT work). Please consider the following points before you judge me on my decision:

1) There were at least sixty pairs of chopsticks in the container.

2) These chopsticks can be bought in bulk for a few yen at any supermarket in Japan and are available for free at every convenience store in the country.

3) In all the months I have watched my supervisor eat his lunch, he has never once snapped apart a pair of these disposables. He instead employs a trendy black pair which matches the lunchbox set that his wife fills with delicious Japanese treats.

4) There was no one in the staffroom.

5) Daphne.

And so, I reached across and eased out a pair of the dratted things and, breathing a sigh of relief, settled down with udon and the Crane boys.

The next day, I could tell something was up. My supervisor hadn’t spoken to me since I arrived at 8am, but then this wasn’t particularly unusual (When I got back from my trip to Tokyo, no one spoke to me for two days. Apparently they are all just really busy). It was only when I snuck a peek at his desk that I saw the pathetic jig was up.

Each pair of chopsticks in the container had been accounted for. The closest pair had a tiny ‘1’ written on the left hand chopstick in black vivid and a tiny ‘2’ on the right hand one; the next pair had ‘3’ and ‘4’ and so on. The numbers reached into three digits; rather impressive given that this called for six numerals crammed together on a single pair of chopsticks. It may well be the most extraordinary example of passive aggression I have ever witnessed. Even the great Gareth Keenan would have trouble keeping up.

Today, I bit the bullet and offered my supervisor a pair of the same disposable chopsticks, apologizing for my actions and telling him it wouldn’t happen again. He gave me a tight smile and went back to his report without saying a word. I have a feeling this could drag on for the rest of my tenure.

And people wonder why I hate my job.