Have you ever had one of those days that go all wrong from the start?

When I still had a job that forced me out of the house each morning, such days would inevitably start with my trying to brush my teeth with my face cream. Or to moisturise with my toothpaste. (In my defense: Similar sized tubes standing next to each other. Plus: I’m not a morning person.)

Unfortunately, there are no such simple indicators anymore since now I work from home and often sit in front of my computer already before I think of hygiene. Therefore, I had no clue whatsoever that last Thursday would turn into one of these “I should have gone right back to bed” days.

It started mid morning when I wanted another cup of tea and wondered where all those bread crumbs on my kitchen floor had come from. And why some of them where moving. On closer inspection these turned out to be insect eggs/pupae the size and color of sesame, and some of them had already turned into tiny white larvae.

Thankfully, they were all concentrated around the garbage bin, so I cleaned out the lower kitchen cabinets (more eggs), swept up about a handful of insects-to-be and threw the whole mess out. To date, no further wrigglies to be found, but the whole operation cost me half an hour on a day where I had already several appointments.

The first meeting was rather uneventful, except for the fact that I had ordered hot fruit tea (or so I thought) and was served an iced soda. Nice, tasty and very fruity indeed, but not quite what I wanted on that rainy day.

Next meeting: rehab for my hip pain. The clinic has changed their mode of working, so it’s 40 minutes of manual therapy followed by two or three exercises of five minutes each. Already the first excercise – a stretching of the left hip muscle – was too much for my ancient jeans. They promptly tore at a very improper place and exposed about 20 cm of my inner thigh. No more exercise after that!

However, one more meeting to go, so I had to rush home, and get changed into something less revealing. At which point I found out that I was not only out of jeans, but out of any kind of pants that were both fitting me (thanks Corona!) and suitable for the current season. All I had were thin summery pants and thick woolen ones for mid winter. I did find some sort of workaround though (don’t ask…) and off I went for my last meeting of the day.

I made it just in time and ordered a glass of orange juice. When the staff put the glass in front of me, it was cracked halfway through. Thankfully I noticed it before I left the counter, and I got fresh juice in a new glass without charge. Other than that, this meeting was uneventful as well.

Finally, upon return to my part of town, I went to Uniqlo to shop for pants. It was exactly the painful experience I try to avoid – which is how I came to be pantless in the first place. Having more curves than the standard Japanese girl makes shopping extra difficult, even if the sizes as such appear to be the right ones – I still can’t get the pants to fit over my hips. Anyway, in the end I could find two that fit me rather well and I went home, well, not happy as such, but content.

Mostly content with the fact that the day was over and I could finally close the door behind me and hide under my covers.

The other day, on the bus, there was an elderly woman sitting across the aisle from me. In general, I do like to watch people, but she only caught my eye when she started nestling with some plastic. She had some strips of thin plastic which she twisted into a somewhat thicker string that she finally knotted into a circle.

She worked very deftly, but I could see no reason why she would do that, and on the bus to boot. From my experience with people watching, I can tell you that there are many very strange people on the loose. In cases as these, it is best not to stare. But she looked like a friendly and normal grandmother, so I kept glancing at her doings ever so often.

After she had finished two plastic circles, out came a small yellow towel. Most Japanese carry them, they are extremely handy in public bathrooms where very often, there are neither towels nor any other means to dry your hands. These days its even worse, when thanks to Covid19, most electric handdryers have been turned off to prevent spreading the virus. But I digress…

So, out came the towel and she folded in two opposite corners to form an (almost) rectangle. She then placed one of her plastic cirles of the third corner of ther towel and folded this in too. Now I was positively staring. What IS she doing, for crying out loud? Occupational therapy? On the bus?

She performed the same operation with the second circle and the fourth towel corner. I still didn’t get it. Only when she was trying to put it on did I realise: She was making a face mask!

They are still mandatory, okay: kindly requested, on public transport , but I hadn’t even noticed that she didn’t wear one until then. Unfortunately, my own stop was coming up, so I didn’t see her wearing her creation. The strings were a bit too short, so she needed to make adjustments. But just coming up with the idea on the fly, and to use what she had on hand – pure genius!

So yes, there are indeed lots of very strange people on the loose. But sometimes, it’s worth looking beneath the surface.