Ok, fine, it was small even for a Japanese apartment...seriously... With my bed stretched across the shorter length, I had just enough room to fit my 6.5 foot bed across the entire place... even folding it in half left me without a quarter of my living space.
Then again... I could walk to work in about 11 minutes, and while Noborito isn't exactly known for being a clean, thriving pseudo-urban setting, it did have (as my appaato-predecessor Nick said) "character". And I do realize that commenting on a neighborhood with good character, is kind of like setting your someone up with a "nice guy/girl with a great personality" (for any j-folk: these are euphemisms for "ugly and not very exciting")
What really got me though, was the mould. Not only did it grow on my shower, and move to some of my toiletries, but it migrated quite readily to one of my futons.
This was indeed the final straw. So, with my best intention not to disturb the wa (harmony) of my sweet employer, I put in a nice call to head office.
/background sidebar - one of the head managers seems to have taken a shine to me... she's really quite nice, but she's taken to saying things like "brent-sensei, you're soo funny" at meetings.
SO... anyway, I called the office, and lo and behold, who should answer, but the very same manager.
K: (Japanese Phone Script - "O Denwa arigato gozaimasu. Eikawa no (School). Ko koshi K-San de gozaimasu..." .)
B: Hello, its Brent Sensei from Noborito
K: He-LLO! Brent Sensei! How are you?
B: Oh, I'm doing just fine... how are you?
K: I'm great! Who are you looking for?
B: Well.. you actually. (I'm such an ass... but I'm a smooth ass now and then)
K: Reallly? What can I help you with?
B: Well.. its about my apartment... there's a small problem.
K: (anxiously) What is it?
B: Well... you see, its the mould...
K: The ... mould?
B: Yeah... I was ok with the mould in the shower, but now its moved to my futon, and I'm starting to get a bit sick. so.... I was wondering if we could, you know...look into a new apartment??
K: You have mould on your futon?!?
B: Yeah... its been growing there for a bit now.
K: Oh my God! We'll find you something right away!
B: Well, actually.... Chuck Norris Jr. Sensei (some names have been changed to protect the guilty, the innocent and those in between that control my next raise...) has already picked out an apartment in Kuji..
K: Really? We'll look into that right away!
B: Thank you so much K-san. I really, really appreciate it.
K: No problem. We'll have that fixed up right away.
... So... not only did they find me a lovely new apartment (about twice the size, and brand new... with free internet access)... but they also booked and paid for a moving company. This might not seem like a big deal, but its definitely against company policy to lay out this kind of cash.
Total time elapsed between that phone call and when the moving company showed up at my door: 8 days.
Not bad, considering you usually have to plop down mad deposits, key money, bribes, hookers-and-blow allowances and everything else under the sun to get a new apartment.
Here are some shots of the old hell hole. I’m still snazzing up and unpacking at the new joint, but I’ll put up some pics soon.
This pic was taken with my back in the corner.
Opposite corner.
1 comment:
Oh, Blent-sensei!
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