My parents came to visit me, and today I took them to Ikebukuro, a large and busy shopping district. My dad wanted to split up and then meet up at an assigned time. Standing with my mother, I waited. The time came and went as did the following minutes as did the following hour. It was then that I got a panicked feeling, which I believe was a premonition of if and when I have childrene. I didn't have much faith in my father at being able to find his way back to my home.
I had visual flashes of unsettling scenarios: him lying on a park bench; him loitering with beers in a smoky karoke bar; him walking backwards as though retracing his steps then crying.
There were several reasons for this:
1. I was pretty sure he was not carrying my phone number or house address.
2. Even if he had my house address the taxi drivers would not know how to read it.
3. If he asked people for directions they would not know how to respond unless it was a straight path (I've had 1 person drive me and 3 people walk with me 10 - 15 minutes).
4. What directions could he ask if he did not have my address? (You know my son Joe? How can I find his apartment?).
After 1.5 hours passed I reluctantly agreed with my mother that he wasn't going to show up, and we went to eat. After eating I walked back to the area one last time and when he was not there, we went home. It was then on the train that my phone vibrated to show that I had two missed calls. When I called the number back there was an automated answering machine from a cell phone so I assumed it was not my father but a friend who I hadn't programmed in. Later that number called me again after I had called and left a message and a strange voice said my name, "Joe."
"Yes?"
"Wait."
Then my father came on. He sounded demoralized as if the city of Tokyo was a Hummer and his life force was an hollow eggshell and... well you can guess what follows.
He told me he was lost but some guy is trying to help him.
Only just now he came home and I had a talk with him. Again, the generiousity of Japanese people was shown. After approaching 1000 people with the only piece of information he had (I live at a station that I think it starts with TS) one person who spoke less English than a 2 year old seemed to vaguely understand the words coming out of his mouth.
My father said this guy was Mr. Gadget. He had everything and one thing he also had was internet connection on his phone. The hardest part was trying to communicate with him that my phone number and address was in an email.
Eventually he hooked up several devices and got internet and went into my father\s account and emailed me to call and then took down my address and converted it to Japanese (in case my father needed to give it to a taxi driver) and then called me. I was in the train station so I did not get the call. He waited an entire 30 minutes with my father at the train station before calling again, which again I did not receive. This was when I finally got signal and called him back and he then called me back. After we talked he took my dad to the right train and told him when to get off.
Wow. So my father is home now. Tomorrow I'll have to ask him what they talked about for 30 minutes when neither knew a common language.
I think if I have children I'm going to make them wear GPS bracelets.
