A good day goes bad

I am seeing this event in the humour of hindsight, but today a normal occurance went tragicly wrong with just a dash of Japanese thrown in so I always know where I am. I'm sure this will put a smile on everyone's face Monday morning. Arriving home from Obihiro I put my keys in the door to unlock it as usual but it wouldn't open. The lock was jammed and I was locked out. After trying for ten minutes to no avail, I knew I had two (nearly identical) options: 1) Break into my own house. 2) Phone the town office (whose house I rent) and have them break into the house for me. I decided to cover all my bases and used my neighbour's phone to call the office. I waited in the shade of my car for about ten minutes until help arrived. I quickly explained my stituation and let them try the lock themselves. What I found humorous was that ast this went on, more and more cars kept arriving. Chuckling to myself I wondered how many people they had phoned. I was feeling bad about being locked out and felt horrible about interupting everyone's Sunday afternoon. However, it was nice to witness how far my community was willing to go on my account, even with the mere mention I needed help.

The next scene was also quite humorous: After the assembled group of men was satisfied that, yes, the lock was indeed broken they held council. A couple more phone calls. Some were looking seriously at the ground while smoking, deep in thought. Soon a consenus was reached and I could see action was to be taken directly when out came a hammer. That was the sign I was waiting for because I knew soon I would be in my house. We ended up busting through a smaller side door. Even with the many thanks I gave, the reader should understand that the situation is not quite over, I know that come Monday this will all have to be explained again to my office and another council assembled to get my door fixed.