CONTENT WARNING: Vomit
I’m the author of this story, and I’ve been teaching English in Japan for several years now.
Since I’m a freelancer, I’m responsible for filing my own taxes every February. In Japan, there are two ways you can do this: you can go to a specific place and fill out the forms by hand, or you can do it online, print out the forms, and mail them.
Sadly, the online tax payment website is very much NOT user-friendly. In fact, it’s a lot like one of the old Sierra adventure games, where you can accidentally and royally screw yourself by doing the wrong thing and not realize it until much later, at which point you have to go back and repeat the whole process.
My Japanese husband’s and my attempts at online filing always end the same way:
Me: *After two to three hours and much shortening of tempers.* “So… wanna go to [City] and file there?”
Husband: “Yeah, okay.”
The tax place (not a permanent tax office; just a place that springs into being in February for people to pay their taxes) is one of those ‘take a number and wait’ systems, and the people on the desk call those numbers in batches of ten. It gets very crowded very FAST. For context, we arrive at 8:50 and we’re told that our batch won’t be called until 15:30.
Luckily, the tax place is in a huge mall, so there are things we can do and ways to kill time; we can go eat some food, take in a movie, things like that, and get back to the tax place at around 15:00.
We’re finally called at 15:45 and allowed into the tax place proper. The tax process usually takes about one or two hours, much of which is spent queuing up to be told which queue we need to go to next.
At last, we get there. The whole process is basically, “Fill in this form at Place A, then queue up for Place B to fill in the next batch.”
At this point, I’m feeling a little lightheaded, which I chalk up to weird blood sugar levels and not a great deal of food. I’m on meds for the aforementioned blood sugar, which completely zap my appetite, and I’m used to the symptoms. They’re not pleasant, but I figure that I can put up with them until I can get into the car.
About ninety minutes later, [Husband] and I are queuing up yet again, and I suddenly realize that no, I can’t put up with the symptoms. In fact, I’m about to pass out (I’m pretty familiar with those symptoms, too).
My first instinct is to bend over and stick my head between my knees, but we’re packed too close together for me to do that without knocking everyone in front of me over like so many Japanese dominoes. Instead, I clutch my husband’s arm and dip my head as far as I can in the hopes that it’ll make the pretty brown fireworks stop popping in front of my eyes. Nope. In fact, they get worse.
Husband: “[My Name]? Are you okay?”
Me: *In somewhat incoherent Japanese.* “No… It’s no good… no good… have to sit down. Have to sit down.”
Except the tax place has no chairs at all. We’re roped off into our respective queues and do all transactions and form-filling standing up, with the only break being the occasional shuffle forward.
[Husband] immediately bundles me under the rope separating the lines and over to a volunteer.
Husband: “Excuse me, my wife is unwell. Is there a chair she can use?”
From the astonished/confused look of the volunteer, you’d have thought he’d asked for a camel ride.
Volunteer: “Um… well… we, uh, we don’t have… that is, there might be one over here.”
She escorts us to a slightly more open area that has what looks like a private workspace that’s shut off from the rest of the tax place by office partitions. About four feet away from this space, with no warning at all, I throw up. Excessively. Right in front of everybody. And when I say no warning, I MEAN no warning; I’m as surprised as everyone else!
I am also mortified. I want the hard, blue-carpeted and now rather stained floor to open up and swallow me on the spot. I get my chair; I sit down while [Volunteer] bustles off and returns with a huge wad of tissues. I take one and try to clean myself up, but my hand is shaking so violently that I can’t. I hear voices saying they should call an ambulance, and manage to come back to Earth just long enough to say that no, it’s not necessary, just let me rest. Someone thoughtfully brings a few more office partitions to screen me from view.
At this point, a very surprised-looking tax official pokes his head around the already existing partitions, no doubt wondering why a foreign woman has suddenly broken out of the queue, rushed over to his makeshift office, and puked outside it. [Husband] explains the situation, and [Tax Official] nods.
Tax Official: “Okay. Come with me.”
[Husband] takes me on his arm; I’m no longer dizzy or nauseous by this point, but I feel very weak, and we follow [Tax Official] into the office. There are two desks inside, and [Husband] and I sit down in front of one of them.
[Tax Official] produces the forms we need and helps me fill them out. The entire process, which usually takes up to two hours, is finished in fifteen minutes. When [Husband] and I emerge, the floor is also spotless.
We go back to the car and I assure my worried husband for the nth time that yes, I’m fine now and it was probably just my meds. We sit in the car for a few minutes.
Husband: “Wow. Fifteen minutes.”
Me: “Yeah. I couldn’t believe how quickly he got it done.”
Husband: “Mm-hmm.”
Pause.
Husband: *Jokingly.* “It’s a pity you didn’t throw up two hours earlier, then we could have skipped the queue.”
The worst part is that I have to go back there this year as well. Part of me wonders if they’ll remember me!
