I have an infamously small bladder. Maybe just an infamous inability to hold a regular sized bladder. In any case, it sometimes makes things really awkward (road trips, movies, sex, sneezing, trampolines). Most of the time I just laugh it off, but at the very least it means I’m going to be completely incontinent when I old.

Last night I was in the neighboring town, Takasaki, at strangely cool Irish bar called Odessa. I had to down my last cocktail (of three) to dash to catch the last train, scheduled to leave at 11:14pm. I ran to the station, and made it to the platform with a couple minutes to spare. My train apparently had the lowest priority. We sat at the platform until well after 11:30 waiting for other trains to clear the track. Then we made very long stops at subsequent stations to allow other trains to pass.

I seriously had to pee. I was in agony. I shifted positions. I stood up. By the time we got to one station before mine, I was concerned I was going to burst right there on the train in front of all these stern late night Japanese passengers. Moreover, I remembered that the train moves very slowly between that station and my own. And my train station doesn’t have a bathroom so I’d have to run through the station and run around to the other side where I might be able to find a place to squat where no one would see. Could I make it?

Oh fuck it. I’ll get off here where there is a bathroom and walk home. I estimated that the walk would take about an hour. I’ve never gotten off at this station and have no idea what’s in the area. It may be the middle of the night but that’s a fine time to explore, right?

Well, there’s nothing in the area.

I used the squat toilet at this station and then started on my way. I wasn’t sure I was going the right way, but after 15 min of walking I recognized some landmarks that I thought were probably going in the right direction. There weren’t any useful signs in English for a long time.

After about an hour of walking, I didn’t know where I was. I stopped in a convenience store to ask directions…. as best I could in Japanese. They didn’t know any of the places I listed near my house. They were able to show me where I was now and where the station I should have used was.

Fuck. I went in the wrong direction. I said “Taxi?” and made a phone sign with my hand. “Denwa?” they said, which means “phone,” and pointed outside to a green pay phone. Oh right. I’m going to know the number to a taxi or even be able to read a Japanese phone book to call a taxi.

I started off on foot again. This time I was fairly sure I was going in the right direction. A man on a bicycle asked me where I was going. Or at least I think that’s what he meant. Luckily, he spoke a tiny bit of English and did recognize the stores around my house. He indicated that there was no way I could walk there. We stood there hopelessly for a moment.

“Taxi?” I defeatedly suggested.

The man walked me back to the convenience store, flipped through the phone book, and called a taxi on his keitai. It arrived about 5 minutes later.

I knew the taxi was going to be expensive. But I had no idea how different the rates in America are as compared to Japan, unless, of course, I got the special gaijin price. I estimated it was going to be a $15 trip at most. Then I noticed that the price was going up 80yen (~$0.66) every 10-15 seconds. It wasn’t as if the taxi was going especially fast. The speed limit in the city is 50kph (31mph) at the highest, and I assure you the taxi was probably not even hitting that speed. To my horror, the final price was 2660yen.

To put it in perspective, this is more than it costs to take a 2+ hour train ride to Tokyo. This is more than half what it would cost to take the bullet train to Tokyo. The original train ticket from Takasaki to my station was 320yen.

My $22 piss.