I fought the good fight. In truth, it took a devastating amount of internal strength & fortitude as I battled my nemesis of old. I struggled for the sake of family, for their safety, for their sanity. In this case, “family” means my husband, and “nemesis” means the silent stalker that has pounded my consciousness into oblivion time and time again- motion-induced slumber.
I fall asleep at the drop of a hat whenever I am in a car speeding towards a destination farther away than a half hour. And no, it doesn’t necessarily matter if I’m driving or not, the inescapable urge remains.
This weakness of mine does nothing to help my husband as he valiantly sits behind the wheel, dodging death traps and mentally calculating how far we’ve gone, how far we need to go, and wondering how he’s supposed to stay awake with his wife zonked out beside him. The void my consciousness leaves inevitably tempts his alert mind to shut down as well.
In laymen’s terms, he gets sleepy.
Unlike other road trips I could mention, I could not afford to drift into the Sands of Doze. I was on a mission. I had obligations and knee-shaking amounts of responsibility.
I was the Navigator.
Armed with only a sketchy compass and a linguistically incomprehensible road map, my duty was three-fold:
1. Keep my driver awake & relatively cheerful (dodging death traps is hard work!).
2. Track our progress across the country to make sure we didn’t take a wrong turn somewhere and waste oodles of precious, precious time.
3. Keep our vehicle on course as we wound our way through the inevitable twists & turns we would encounter between our starting point & destination.
Fortunately, driving through vast, lonely emptiness doesn’t exist on an island that crams more people into smaller spaces than sardines in a can. This robbed my foe of its main weapon- visual boredom. I’d also like to thank a major contributor to our sleepless voyage- Mr. iPod and his cohort, Clickity Tape Deck Adaptor. You rock.
In the end, it was well worth the effort… some of the English names we saw for various businesses were classic.
It doesn’t get much better than “Wonder Goo”, although “Cow Cow” does come close. Would anyone like to wager a guess on what either of these respective establishments actually sells? I eagerly await your comments.
Our maiden voyage would soon come to an end.
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5 comments:
Good guesses sis! They're definitely amusing, even if they're not correct :0)
Here's a hint... don't base guesses on the names themselves. The Japanese often don't know what the English word(s) actually mean, they just like the sound.
For instance, I recently visited a place called "Popcorn". Turns out it's a quaint coffee shop that serves Korean food.
Go figure!
Hmm, wonder goo and cow cow. Reminds me of calling my cat Mao Mao, actually his name is Mao, but repeating it just pleases me for some reason.
Wonder goo -> Jewlery or trinket shop.
Cow Cow -> Apparel store
Those are just my guesses. Anyway, been a long time since I have heard from you Star. Thought I would send a hello from Texas. - Bryan Rehbein (squallbsr at satx rr com)
Gift shops are mythical creatures that only appear when the wind blows counter-clockwise at 4:37 in the morning as a dolphin named Finney hops his way across the marina to play Chinese checkers with a turnip named Walter...
Not gift shops either :)
Seriously though, gift shops seem to congregate in "tourist towns", the biggest "tourist hangout" in an otherwise unextrordinary town, and in temple courtyards. So I guess the answer is just in certain spots.
Bryan! Hullo!
Good to hear from you- it really has been a while! How are you and your wife? If I had a cat named Mao, I would also call him Mao Mao. The sound truly rolls off the tongue in a pleasing manner.
Your guesses are wild and make no sense whatsover- a very impressive start ;P Definitely closer, although not *quite* there. I will lift the veil off this mystery in the semi-near future :)
Unveiling the answers you've all been waiting for...
Wonder Goo- music, movies, books, models... basically the closest thing to a Best Buy we've found around here yet. Very awesome store.
Cow Cow- Car dealership. A much cooler name than Dellenbach... Or ToyoPet for that matter :)
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