My first ever argument She Who Must Be Obeyed involved a credit card. Today we managed to collaborate over one, but I’m afraid we’ll have to do it again and things will get bad.

Soon after I started dating She Who Must Be Obeyed we went shopping for something or other and I used my credit card. The problem was, I was apparently the first person in history to attempt to use a credit card at this large shopping center. The clerk studied the card, sighed in an “are you f@#king serious” way, and then put the card, at least to my eyes, through the machine upside down.

The machine beeped and the clerk shrugged. I said to try it again. At this point, She Who Must Be Obeyed jumped in and told them I was using a debit card (which we had talked about before in the community English class she’d joined; long story). The clerk seemed relieved and I started to hand the card back and I insisted she try again.

She Who Must Be Obeyed tried to intervene again and at that point I said “Don’t help” and she complied by storming away. Eventually, the clerk called someone and the card cleared. However, the clerk never stopped looking at me with suspicion. She Who Must Be Obeyed eventually spoke to me again.

I bring this up because today, at long last, I decided to apply for a Japanese credit card. The problem is, the Japanese are still, to my mind, behind in designing and using browser based forms. As such, each form has lots of extra steps and different lines have to be done in different sized Japanese letters. Even with good Japanese, there’s so much technical jargon it’s even hard for Japanese to do.

Therefore, She Who Must Be Obeyed stayed nearby as I attempted to fill out the form. After almost 45 minutes, and several backtracks to figure out what was wrong–luckily this form was modern enough to save previous work–I finally got the form submitted.

Now, I have to wait and hope I get approval. However, the odds are not necessarily ever in my favor. (I know one person who was rejected several times and ended up having to get a kind of debit card.)

If it doesn’t clear, we may have to go through all this again and that could be problematic.

I’m not agoraphobic, but I find that the more time I spend in the house doing things, the less interested I am in leaving it. This is a reverse cabin fever that I don’t fully understand.

This week, because of entrance exams, we’ve been on a strange schedule at the school where I work. I, of course, totally worked on several things for the company I work for, but well, yeah.

After a few days of totally working on these projects–which I have to do in the morning— today I decided I needed to get out of the house and do things like “see the sun” and “breathe fresh air” and “put on trousers” (not necessarily in that order).

The trouble is, my brain began running through excuses for why I didn’t actually want to leave the house. (It did this the last couple days as well.) The excuses included: no reason to go out; what you need to do you can put off: what you can’t put off you can order off the internet; breathing stale air makes you stronger, fresh air will make you weak; you’ll just spend money.

In that end that’s what made me leave. I need to price some computer parts and then decide if I want the adventure of replacing them myself. (I’m not afraid to do it especially as the adventure will provide lots of fodder for this daily bit of blather it’s just a pain in the behind to find all the stuff and pick a day to do it.) I also need to see if it’s cheaper to just buy a new computer.

I gathered up all my stuff, made a list of the specs for the components I needed and set out on my daily adventure. After I went to the ATM to get some cash, I realized I’d forgot the list of parts specs. I went to the shop and looked over a few things but only got a couple prices. Then I went to a couple pen shops and managed to not buy anything. (No, really.)

I then finally got to enjoy the chicken chicken I was denied a couple months ago. (I probably won’t need to eat for days now.)

However, after a couple hours, I just came home. I bought some healthy snacks and then waited to have beans thrown at. (I’ve written about that before.)

It wasn’t a productive day, but it was relaxing.

Because nothing bad has happened I have small problems in both my office and in our house. I solve some of the problems by eating them.

After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the countless aftershocks, we became very diligent about our escape plans and assembled a couple bugout bags, including one at school. A couple years ago I updated them and we’ve now reached the time of year when I have to update them again.

At home that involves dusting things off, checking dates and deciding what to do with the stuff inside. Some of it will be replaced and the rest thrown away or, if it seems in reasonable shape, left for another year.

The problem happens when I check the food as my first instinct is just to eat it, even it’s well past its BEST BY date. This also She Who Must Be Obeyed’s natural instinct. In the past we’ve eaten five year old canned bread and biscuits (cookie-like things) and rice (and fed them to our girls as well). The only things we don’t eat are things in dented or damaged cans or things in rusting cans.

In my case, after I started cleaning out my Get Home bag at work, I decided to eat the old “cup noodle” soups. One was very tasty, the other wasn’t that good. Neither of them appeared to be bad, but I did get a headache the day I ate the second one.

Tomorrow I will attack our big bag and decide what needs to be updated and replaced. I also want to spread stuff around to a couple other bags now that the girls are old enough to carry some stuff. (In fact, I want them to help assemble the bags.)

As for the food, well, some of it might end up being my lunch tomorrow. This means I can’t promise tomorrow’s post will be especially appetizing.

It wasn’t an “Oh sh#t” moment, it was more of an “Oh crap” moment.

When I arrived at the train station on my way to work today the first thing I noticed was the time schedule had destinations listed but no times. My first reaction was “Oh crap” because it meant that something had gone wrong and there were train delays. It also meant that the trains were going to be crowded.

Note: The “Oh sh#t” moment, when it happens, takes place on the way to the station. It occurs at the precise moment I can see the circle in front of the the station. If it’s full of people and one or two police officers, my reaction is “Oh sh#t” because it means the trains have stopped and no one is being allowed into the station. This can be good (if I’m on the way to work) or bad (if I’m going shopping).

Today, though, the first train arrived on time and although there were a few more people than usual, it wasn’t that crowded.

This, of course, was a trap.

The train that arrived on time wasn’t the train that was supposed to be arriving and the people who were late for work kept pressing in until even the air itself said “to hell with this, I’m leaving” and we were left with no air. Luckily, I had a wide place for my feet and a bar I could hand on to with my left hand whilst my right hand wielded my book bag at knee level to keep people from pressing farther in.

The trip was slower than usual, but not that bad. After I arrived I work I discovered that 1) classes were delayed a half hour and 2) the reason the trains were slow was because of a “door problem” that had occurred at at nearby station a few hours before.

A website that monitors trains was full of tweets from Japanese mocking the idea that a door could cause that much delay. A few hours later, the trains were still messed up. It must have been a hell of a door.