I was awkwardly dancing with a middle-aged man to rockabilly in a subterranean Tokyo club called Oldies (located in one of the red-light districts) when I asked myself: “What am I doing here?”
The rockabilly band, all sharp suits and pomaded coifs, launched into a slow jam, which my partner, Tomo, took as an opportunity to wrap an arm around my waist and dip me backward. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall and cringed: a twenty-something gaijin slow-dancing with a man old enough to be her father.
It’s so obvious I’m a hostess, I thought to myself.
Tomo was wheezing from his efforts on the dance [...]
"They're for the man who has everything," she said.
- Your first job is obviously babysitting, which you are forced into by your parents even though you yourself doubt the wisdom of making a teenager responsible for the lives of other people’s children, which is why you contrive to shorten the danger period (the time during which the children are awake and mobile) by turning all the clocks in the sittee’s house ahead by an hour or two upon parents' departure. You rebuff attempts by one Long Island mother to enlist you in the service of selling her custom knitted "penie warmers."
- Next, work in the [...]
Aren't there a few things on your desk that feel like they should have been replaced with binary code by now? Paper clips. White Out. (Who still uses White Out and what for? No, tell us!) Three-hole punch. Stapler. It seems old fashioned that there are staplers, but if you have to have one, this one is the best. Seriously, it is like a magic stapler. Anyway, in other stapler news, that sexy wall mural over on the left there is made of nearly half a million staples. Get to work, everyone.
It's early, so if you'd rather go back to bed or pass the day doing something other than working, print this out and pass it along to the relevant party. It works best if your name is Ainslay, but other names fit as well.
