March 16th, 2011

This morning I was walking to work when I noticed a round old man in a trench coat make his way out into the street. He was strutting along the median and I wanted to ask, "Hey Buddy, whatcha doin'?" I figured he was going to cross at some point, and there were no cars, so even if he was lingering there for some time it didn't bother me much. It was a little out of the ordinary in my eyes, especially for a Japanese walker (who will usually wait for walk signals regardless of traffic, who will only cross at crosswalks, etc). But I'm an American. You have to get awfully creative to impress me.

Then I looked up just in time to see a housewife toss a dustpan of dirt out her front door. She saw the large foreign woman walking on the sidewalk in front of her house, then she saw the old man walking in the middle of the street, and after that I'm pretty sure it triggered a small explosion in her head somewhere.