This is an excellent picture both because it captures Michael in imitation-bling-bling mode at a Louis Vuitton store in downtown Hiroshima and because it captures the clerk in mid-"hey, you can't do that... but you don't speak my Japanese because you are stupid crackers... but... but you can't do that!" She tried frantically to gesture that pictures were verboten, so I caringly laid on a little of that informal international diplomacy and understanding we foreigners are supposed to exhibit at all times by pointing at my camera, smiling vaguely and nodding like a half-wit while I reveled in my illicitly delicious photo experience.
Before going into this store I had never heard of Louis Vuitton, but Michael stealthily initiated me into the dark secrets of $1000 purses and $3000 boots as if Louis Vuitton was a sort of clothing-and-accessory thuggee, hijacking fools and choking them with strings of hundred-dollar bills, all in the service of the blood-drenched god of French Fashion. Since that day, I have begun to notice just how many of the ultra-fashionable Japanese girls' arm candy sets consist of a Louis Vuitton purse on one arm and a grungy sugar daddy on the other. Clearly they use the one to get the other, but which is the one and which is the other is often hazy. Given that these purses all cost at least $1000 and even fakes will run you more than $100 for a small one, when these women lug around torso-sized Louis Vuitton purses in an obtrusively nonchalant manner, they are clearly saying that the only reason they do not have native bearers following them, bent double with bricks of solid gold, is that native bearers' dark filthy skin might clash with their shoes.
Today I successfully made Grammy and Michael go to a revolving sushi restaurant, although I could not get Grammy to eat any critter that had not been thoroughly cooked. Michael was the big hero of the evening, attacking the meal like a G.I. charging Charlie in the bush amidst a hail of raw-fish-and-rice bullets, finally emerging victorious with four Purple Hearts for Raw Fish and one Medal of Honor for Pickled Vegetables. At one point an invading squad of alien breeder insects slithered slowly by on the conveyor belt, but even under that visual onslaught those bold jaws didn't stop working for the greater glory of their country. I'm so proud. Even Grammy, although hers was to question why, and not but to do and die, deserves credit for willingly watching the proceedings and urging we merry participants to greater and still dizzier heights of raw beast consumption.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Bewildered store clerk
Policy says No Pictures
But the Tengu Rage...
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
730-0803
JAPAN