Sockgate

It was a day like any other. I showered, shaved, put on a suit and was looking my usual fabulous self. There could be no way I could anticipate the HORROR that lay before me. As I drove to work, past paddy fields and temples, I should have felt the clammy hand of fate on my shoulder. For this was to be the day I accidentally flushed my sock down a toilet.

I had just finished teaching year 2, and basically this had involved a lot of making funny faces to amuse 7 year olds and persuade them that counting to 10 in english was in fact a really good idea, and that we can't spend every lesson doing a conga behind cooke sensei (although that was one of the funniest 10 minutes of my life). Naturally upon leaving the classroom I had to high five or shake hands with every student, and being hugged by 12 japanese 7 year olds is just one of those things that cooke sensei has to deal with.

But after the controlled anarchy of the classroom, I felt a need. I could attempt some beautiful turn of phrase to sum up this need, some clever metaphor like 'i was totally prarie dogging' but basically I just really needed a poo.

And yet time was short. This would have to be a shit and run operation. I had forgotten my indoor shoes that day, so was scuttling around school wearing slippers that kept falling off due to them being tiny with no back to them. My scuttling led me succesfully from the staffroom and towards the toilets, whereupon I encountered my first obstacle. No lights, just a dark room lit by one solitary small window at the far side of the room. And it got worse, as the door of the toilet cubicle swung open to reveal a Japanese squat toilet. Checking the other cubicles, I knew this was a neccessary evil I must survive.

I shut the cubicle door, immersing myself in a disorientating darkness. To speed the process up I took one leg out of my trousers, swung my trousers round, took aim and fired. For a debut performance my aim was pretty good, and all in all I was feeling justifiably pleased with myself, so I stood up, zipped up and cast a glance at the floor for my now curiously absent right sock. Maybe 5 seconds passed before the horrible realisation hit me. I had flushed my sock down the toilet in a fit of premature pride.

The ensuing walk of shame was like no other. I have struggled to communicate many messages to colleagues with no English. A few examples would be 'what time is school lunch', 'do I have to come to school for the festival' or even just expressing thanks for a cup of green tea. But I never thought I'd have to explain 'the reason I'm only wearing one sock is because I flushed the other one down the toilet, duh!'. Checked the phrasebook, wasnt there, obviously I bought a substandard phrasebook. After my intial attempts at explaining the situation in Japanese fell on deaf ears, I had to communicate the story through the medium of MIME.

The staff gazed quizically upon the strange foreign man who was squatting with a slightly pained look on his face and pointing manically at his foot. And then it dawned. And I think it was possibly the funniest thing they had ever heard in the history of everything.

Hopephully there'll be no more phunny phil and phaeces adphentures but brog readers will be the phirst to know!