Jet lag can be a killer but it can also be a giver. If John McClane hadn't been fighting his jet lag in the corporate bathroom, he would have been rounded up with the others and the Die Hard franchise would have been snuffed at birth. Yippee-Ki-Yay mother hubbard!
I'd been burning the candle not at both ends but burning it twice as fast on the work end. No work/life balance and spending another late night at the office the day before the red eye to Tokio. The saving grace being I would arrive on a Sunday and get a night's sleep before my day with prospective clients.
Comfortable flight, but again I'm on my laptop for most of it so not topping up my sleep tank and by touchdown I've slept six hours in the last 48. Not good. Check-in is a blur at the hotel and no sooner in the key in the door than the sheets are back off the bed and I'm enveloped in Japanese linen which smothers me into unconsciousness.
As a result, I oversleep and when my bleary eyes focus on the clock, there's less than an hour before I'm due in an office ten blocks away. I ring down to reception to ask for a taxi and there's nothing to be had for another hour. With the sublime politeness that the Japanese have, the receptionist asks me where I'm trying to get to and then tells me that a super efficient public bus service will leave in twenty minutes from outside the hotel and stops within five minutes of my destination.
A hurried shower and as few clothes as I can get away with the combat the heat and the potential running around I'll have to do and I'm barrelling out of the hotel doors and joining a queue clambering through the rear doors to board a spotlessly clean bus.
It's only after the doors close and we set off that I realise that every other person on this bus is in a uniform. At least they're all of a reasonably mature age and I won't have to endure erupting acne or the tinny zizz of badly insulated headphones.
Instead, this group were texting and smart phone surfing their social media fingers off. I was on the wrong bus. In my overslept haste I had jumped on the wrong bus. This one was, according to the signs, on a bus bound for Tokio university.
I hadn't managed to get a seat so I slumped against a pole to do my own smart phone surfing. Not for social media but for a map to see where I was going and then to send an email to my hosts, begging their forgiveness, patience and hoping that this was not the sort of dishonour that would cause anyone to lose face. Or any other bodily part.
Now that I knew that I was heading further and further away from my destination, and that this bus didn't stop again before it got there in over an hour's time, I called base (forgetting the time difference) and shared my shame. All in all, it seemed best to re-schedule the whole day's worth of meetings for tomorrow and start again.
Today was my own and I could do as I pleased so I decided to explore wherever it was that I got to before trying to find a taxi that could take me to back to the city centre and preferably to some sort of baths or spa where I could steam out my frustrations and get a pummelingly good massage.
Once I had hung up, the young student nearest me turned her beautiful Asian face to my chest and asked if I was alright. Her English was faultless, albeit with an American dialect. Certainly better than my Japanese, which was non-existent.
So I explained my mistake and cause and my companion made all the giggles, smiles and blushes that you would expect from an excruciatingly polite and shy Asian damsel. Being the best part of a foot taller than her, in order to be heard she moved closer. And with the aforementioned height difference, that put her head just below my jaw and in order to maintain eye contact, I was obliged to look down and as a result look down the gap in her browse to enjoy the sight of pink lace wrapped jiggly womanliness. The jiggliness coming courtesy of the bus' suspension, despite the pool table smooth tarmac.
Now that the ice was broken and the distance between us closed, we continued to speak and share life stories and dreams of what she hoped to do after graduation and what I wanted to do next in my career. She was delightful company and being in higher education, her conversation was informed and topical.
As I became engrossed in our chat, my Neanderthal brain was soaking up her appearance. About 5'2" as I said but at a guess, I'd say size 8 and a generous 34B. She was dressed, as I mentioned in a blouse, which happened to be crisp white to the point of appearing starched with too many buttons undone to be decorous. Neanderthal man was grateful for the high humidity in Tokio for that. And below the waist was a pleated, plaid skirt. Although clearly having left school some years ago and above the age of consent, she had opted for the schoolgirl look, complete with knee high socks and Mary Jane pumps. Neanderthal man was grateful was odd Oriental predilections.
As smooth as the tarmac was and as efficient as the bus' suspension was, there was undoubtedly forces at work that were determined to rub a twenty-something's nubile body up against mine. This made it very hard. Hard to concentrate on our conversation and hard to conceal just how hard all of this was making me.
This was embarrassing enough but in my pursuit of combating the humidity, I had sacrificed any form of underwear and the fabric of my trousers was closer to a lightweight linen than a sturdy worsted. As a result, blood engorged flesh snaked down the leg of my trousers and made a distinct manprint.
