Unintentional scare

I left off the last blog with us heading to Costco in Fukuoka.  Ah, Costco…..the magical fun land of American consumerism!    The first time I went to Costco was in December.  That first experience was an enchanting trip, but this second time the magic of Costco seemed to be lost just a bit.  I knew what to expect, so it didn’t surprise me as much.  We still had a great time and ate lunch/dinner at the food court.  Ian and I both got HUGE slices of pizza and drinks for only 600 yen TOTAL.  Gah….I miss cheap food prices!!    While we got the things that we came for, the biggest (literally) and best item we bought at Costco was a 54 inch giant stuffed panda.  Yes, you read that right.  The panda was literally the size of an adult.  Melissa B’s birthday is just around the corner, and Ian and I wanted to get her something nice since she’s always so good to us.  She LOVES pandas…..maybe even more than her own life.  Her dream job is to be a panda ambassador.  As soon as we saw the giant stuffed panda, we knew that was it!!  Game over on any other gift ideas!    We loaded the giant stuffed panda into our cart and laughed until we were blue in the face.  The thing literally TOWERED over our cart!  Everyone stared at us, and kids pointed and smiled.  We seriously had the BEST time pushing our cart with the giant panda around the store.  The cashiers giggled as they scanned the big behemoth, and even getting it into our car was a hoot.  We literally had to buckle it done as if it was another passenger.

 

On our way home from Fukuoka, the three of us decided that we couldn’t wait until her birthday to give it to her.  We decided that she should have it ASAP.    Our scheme was simple: get to her house and see if she was home.  If she was, we would put it in the driver’s seat of her car.  Then Mollee would call Melissa and tell her that she was lost in Hitoyoshi and ask if she could come and find her.  Melissa would say yes (because she’s Melissa) and then go out to her car and see the giant panda.  Plan B was if she wasn’t home.  Generally she leaves her bathroom or shower room window unlocked.  Ian was going to lift me up, I would crawl in and unlock the front door so that they could come in with the big panda, and then we’d leave it in the living room.

 

When we got to her house, she was there, so we went with option A.  Ian tip-toed over to her car, squeezed the giant bear in the driver’s seat, and closed the door without a sound.  I was actually impressed with his stealth!  Mollee tried to call Melissa five different times, but she wouldn’t pick up.  Downtrodden but unwilling to let our surprise be wasted, we tried to call her on Skype.  She still didn’t answer, so we sent her a Skype message saying that Mollee was lost in Hitoyoshi and had no idea where she was at.  Mollee called one more time, and Melissa picked up that time.  We heard movement in the house and knew that Melissa was leaving to “help Mollee.”  Ian and I were waiting at the corner of Melissa’s house to see her come out.  She was on the phone with Mollee, not paying any attention to her surroundings while she opened her car door and sat down.  The soft and squishy panda must have freaked her out because she jumped up and said, “I THINK SOMEONE’S IN MY CAR!!”  Ian and I realized at that point that instead of being surprised she was scared—not our intention—so we rounded the corner of her house while laughing.  I think this scared her even more.    I can’t say that I blame her.  To have two shadowy figures approach me in the darkness of midnight after just thinking that someone was in my car would scare the crap out of me as well.  Oops! 

Once she realized that it was just us and the whole Mollee thing had been a set up (and blood pressures were reduced to normal) we had a good laugh about it!  In fact, Melissa was already talking about how she was going to get the panda home….buy a plane ticket for it?  ….claim it as her carry-on?  …..get some of those vacuum packs and suck all of the air out of it?  We laughed and laughed as we all came up with more obnoxious solutions to this problem. 

Ian and I stayed the night at Mollee’s house so that we could go to church the next morning.  It also just so happened to be the Hitoyoshi Marathon that day.  I knew and thought that we could go watch the runners after Mass.  What I didn’t know was how close the start line would be to our church.  On the way to Mass we saw people congregating and walking to an area a block or so away from the church.  Throughout Mass we heard periodic announcements from the loudspeaker, but it wasn’t until Mass was over that we realized just how close the start line was.  We were blocked in!!  Runners lined the street for about two blocks in either direction.  There was no way we were leaving anytime soon!!    However, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  Ian said he was cold, so he waited in the car, but I watched the start of the race, which was actually pretty fun.  There were people dressed up in costumes, teams of people with their faces painted, and a few teams with the same t-shirts.  Everyone cheered and clapped them on when the race started.  We had to wait about ten minutes after the start for the crowd to clear before we could leave the church’s parking lot.  There were several other cars lined up, and we followed them out. 

Ian and I usually go to McDonald’s for breakfast after church.  However, by the time we got to McDonald’s they were no longer serving breakfast, so we settled for lunch.  On the way home from church we saw the biggest motorcycle gang I’ve ever seen in Japan.  It must have been over twenty motorcycles—some were the larger roadsters, some had side cars, but the entire gang looked pretty professional. I’m pretty sure that motorcycles IS their one and only hobby.  Regardless….it made both Ian and I be ready to get home and ride our motorcycle!!   

…….that’s all of that, folks!  The next blog I’m going to write is about some things that the Japanese do/I’ve learned they do that seem quirky by our western standards, so make sure to stay tuned for that!!