The Tale of the Missing Futons

After much prompting from my parents and Mack, and a lazy Sunday afternoon, I've finally sat down to make another entry. I can't promise the grandeur of Mack's posts, but I'll try to have a few less spelling errors :P

So now for my first story...The Tale of the Missing Futons!!!!!! Dun dun dun!!!!


Tuesday morning, Mack and I get checked in to the campus apartments, all paperwork squared away for the time being. I happily inspect my new home in Global Village I-104, complete with shower/bath, toilet, and kitchenette. And a lofted bed to call my own. A very naked bed at that... But thoughts of that are pushed aside as I put my luggage down for the thankfully final time that day, and wonder when my roommate will arrive.

An hour later or so, I see dear Mack being escorted to his own apartment with his luggage, and rush outside to meet/follow him. (Unfortunately I think I kind of scared away the Japanese student who was helping him.) Lucky for us, our apartments are on "blocks" next to each other, him in J-208, all of 50 feet away from mine.



We hike up the stairs to his second floor apartment and...wait a minute. There is a giant bundle of stuff on his bed. And his roommate's. According to the receipt laying on it, the pile includes his futon, blankets, pillow, and sheets. On top of that, there is a desk lamp on each of the desks! I didn't have one of those!

At this point, I'm a bit confused, but I decide my bedding must just not have been delivered yet. It's only about 11am. No worries.

Later that afternoon...I return to my room, and begin to unpack. Earlier I had found a binder in my desk drawer, full of manuals on using the different equipments of the kitchen and bathroom. Of course it's all in Japanese... Anyways, I had pushed it aside earlier, but now, upon opening it what do I find? Two receipt papers for bedding... dun dun dun!

That evening, my new (and awesome) roommate Lee (from Korea) and I still don't have sheets. Finally I set out to find out where we can get some. Mack and I started at the res hall maintenance window, then end up using two other students as translators when the employee doesn't understand us (or maybe he wasn't sure how to say the answer in English? Not sure. Either way, translation problems). The students then take us to the Kiosk (convenience store on campus), where apparently the bedding rentals come from. There we happen to meet up with Lee, only to discover that apparently neither of us paid for rental sheets! Neither of us are sure how this happened, certain that we paid all the fees Akita asked.

The lady at the Kiosk tells us we can come back in the morning and rent bedding for the semester...but what to do for tonight?! The mattresses are brick-hard, at least a pillow would be necessary to sleep on it. Mack offers to split up his bedding with us. Thankfully, it does not come to that. Because it's orientation week, the international student affairs office is open late, and one girl suggests we go there. So we go, and from there things get sorted out quickly. Lee and I had indeed paid the fee, which was included in the large payment to Akita. In fact, someone would bring us bedding that very night by car. I'm still not sure what happened, a lot of it was in Japanese at that point, but I recognize a chorus of "gomen nasai" ("very sorry") when I hear one.

So we come to the end of the tale. Someone brought both our bedding sets within the hour right to our door. And the answer to the mystery? Well, the man who brought our bedding in the end said that he was certain he had brought it here before. So option 1: It got delivered to the wrong place. Slight error, but in the end, no problem. Or option 2: Somebody stole them. Unfortunate for us, but someone lucky out there has a double, possibly triple-padded futon.

Lee also managed, by chance, to get us the desk lamps a day later. Who knows what happened there...



Also, we each have a safe that came with our room. Mine had a sock in it :/

I love Japan.

- Jessi