Cold Water

Lately my sleep has been getting pretty fucked up. I think it is stress.

Why am I stressed?

Lets see.... debt. I forgot to pay a few of my bills last month and the month before. Actually it was just two. The power and gas bills in July. I honestly don't know what happened. I just forgot and seeing as how my roommate can't surface from her haze of angst for anything other than throwing a pity party there are very little reminders about bills. She really aggravates me sometimes. I don't understand how some people can not open an envelope with their name on it. Like if something comes from me i have to open it soon. Maybe within the next hour. I have placed enveloped on her desk and watched as she moved the unopened envelope of her desk onto a pie of junk on the table. She wonders why her working visa almost expired before she knew it.

Anyway, Japan doesn't have the common sense that America does. If you miss one of your bill payments I do believe that the power company will simply add it to your next bill. Japan though will send you the bill for the next month with no mention of the previous months missed payment. They will then start flooding you with wave after wave of announcements. I sure they say something about the bill not being paid, but my kanji skills are truly abysmal. (Imagine trying to read The Ugly Duckling when you only know 8 letters of the alphabet and no grammar rules.) They just don't seem helpful sometimes.

This past Thursday they, the gas company, sent a little old bitch out to my apartment at 9:30 in the morning. Yes I know that isn't exactly and ungodly hour, but I was still asleep. When I looked out the peep hole and could barely make out the top of her head I was sorely tempted to answer the door in my bed clothes... nothing.

So I open the door and she has this huge grin on her face and starts rambling something in Japanese and gesturing at a clipboard she is holding. I don't know this bitch from Adam so I am like asking, "Who are you?", in English. You would think that since about 80% of the people in my building have totally unjapanese names and I was speaking English that she would understand that I don't know what the fuck she was saying, but, no. That light never clicked in her head. So we were going back in forth in the doorway for like three minutes. She trying to make her speech and me trying to figure out who she is. I was getting aggravated cause I could I figured she wanted money or to save my soul. (Actually she couldn't want my soul cause the Jehovah's witnesses come prepared for about 30 languages. They have a cute little book.) I was about to shut the door on her but then I realized that she had the door to my gas meter open and then I started to cry on the inside. I hadn't taken a shower yet and I didn't have that much cash on me and I just knew she was gonna turn my shit off.

So I started trying to bargain for time. 1o minutes was all I wanted, but I just didn't know how to say hold on for ten minutes. I know how to say wait, but i haven't learned ten minutes yet. So there we were for another ten minutes. She kept reaching for the gas thing and I kept pointing at her clock and holding up both of my hands. Finally my roommate, the self proclaimed insomniac and speaker of Japanese poked her head out the door and said she had some money. I got it and we paid the bitch.

I was so close to having to bathe in ice cold water, but I was saved. It still doesn't change the fact that my roommate doesn't really consciously contribute to the bill paying process. I just drop a paid bill on her desk and she gives me half. Sometimes I forget. I'm only human. I feel like I am part of a marriage... to a white chick with varicose veins.

You know those things are disgusting.