Matchamonkey

Today was the long-awaited trash day. A day that comes only once every two weeks, where I can lug my bags of plastic trash, aluminum cans and glass bottles (thus giving everyone in the neighborhood a view of how much I've drunk in two weeks) six blocks and throw them away. I had a modest amount of trash today; it wasn't crowding the corners of my kitchen as usual.

Hovering around the neighborhood trash recepticle were two trash monitors. Usually, I sneak past them and throw away my trash unmolested while they help others sort their trash. Today, unfortunately, I was the only one there, and my bag did not escape their discriminating eye. I handed one of them my bag of trash and started walking away quickly, hoping they wouldn't stop me.

"Chotto gomen," a voice called out behind me. Hold on just a minute.

"Hai," I turned around and walked back towards them. Yes.

He pointed to a sauce packet visible through the bag. "This is dirty. You can't throw this away with your plastic trash. You must put it with the regular trash if it's dirty." Then he opened the bag of trash and made me fish out the offending item.

Apparently I need to work on the cleanliness of my trash. Sure, you can throw plastic away one every two weeks, but only if it's clean. I still managed to escape better than some of my friends, who have had their trash returned to them and ther bosses at school called in order to humiliate them into doing a better job of sorting their trash.

I am addicted to coffee. Tempting me everyday, there is a drive-thru Starbucks on the way to work. Usually I'm running too late to stop, but this morning I was actually running early for once. I decided to allow myself this one little treat to get me through the day.

I clutched my coffee in my hands during the morning meeting. My reasons were two-fold--I was trying to warm my hands while hiding from the other teachers what I was holding. The Japanese are a very inquisitive people, especially when it comes to what foreigners eat and drink. I used to bring a Nalgene bottle filled with water to school and set it on my desk. Even though the bottle clearly contained water, everyone, teachers and students, felt the need to stop and ask me what was in my bottle. Though it was tempting to fill it with sake, it always contained water--what I would logically guess to be in a clear container. Anyway, I knew that if they saw too much of my coffee, it would be all over the school in no time. Not that there's anything wrong with drinking Starbucks coffee, I just didn't see a need for it to be the talk of the school.

One man stopped and asked me what I was holding. I quietly revealed the logo on the cup thinking that this would answer all questions. He gave me an inquisitive look.

"It's coffee," I explained. "From Starbucks."

"Ohhh."

Later in the day, I ran into him again.