Becoming One of Them

I have a tendency to make life altering decisions, or at least decisions of immense importance in donut shops. Believe it or not, people, it's where I do my best thinking and for the most part all the work I don't consider to be complete crap fifteen minutes after I write it. I decided to go to Michigan in a Donutland on First Ave. in Cedar Rapids and set the date for my wedding in a Krispy Kreme. The latter involved weighing the pros and cons of particular dates on the reverse of a paper tray mat.

So, the Japanese have put up a united front (something at which they truly excel) in an effort to get Colleen to stay on at least another year (because one more year can always be converted into additional years--remember, the Japanese are much better at thinking long term than we have-it-all-now Western types are) at her teaching job in Mito. The perversity of the whole thing even led to Colleen's supervisor securing a full time job for me at a company in Toyokawa, because, as a thorough misogynist, he assumes that if I have a good job of my own, I won't be threatened by my wife keeping her lowly teaching job for another year.

I'm not sure if you guys know this, but I used to smoke... a lot... but I quit shortly before meeting the darling woman I would later trick into marrying me (muwahahaha). I gave it up, because I realized the cancer sticks were my feeble attempt to cover the anxiety I felt as a result of my complete lack of direction in life. Japanese men, I do basically mean ALL Japanese men smoke like the damn things are going out of style. With 12 hour workdays, a wife you never see and probably don't like anyway, and no hope for anything but a life of slaving away at a thankless job wearing the same black suit you bought when you graduated college, I can see why.