ITAI!

And an already sinking ship hit with another torpedo.

The last month has had my out of sorts.  As is almost always the case, there are multiple reasons.  One is the heat.  We are have a truly unprecedented in my experience heat wave.  I used to work in the engine room of US naval vessels and am thus, or shall I say “was”, accustomed to extreme heat for prolonged periods of time.  I was young then.  We also knew of heat stress and dealt with it.   In my over 20 years in country spread over almost 30 years, I have found that the Japanese hate air conditioning, love to sweat, are at best vaguely aware of heat stress and that even MDs here do not know that high body temperature and fever are not the same.  Dealing with crazy crowded, insufficiently air conditioned commuter trains and classrooms “cooled” to no lower that 27 degrees (C) goes a long way to explain my condition.  Add to this the fact that I have not had to deal with this on a daily basis in the past 3 years and it makes it even more understandable.  But that is not all.

I’ll spare you the laundry list of concerns, family events and the like that we all deal with even in normal times though they are probably worsened by the madness we have had to endure these past 3 1/2 years.  What I will share is the one thing that has this last month repeatedly beat out all these others, tooth pain that wasn’t…exactly.  It is a story 32 years in the making.

A month or so ago I began to experience a soreness in my jaw that reminded me of what my impacted wisdom tooth felt like over 30 years ago.  It being impossible to be that again, I tried to pinpoint the location of the pain with out success.  Finally, my schedule allowed me to make a dental appointment but I had to wait over a week for it.  By the time of the appointment, my gums covering the area were my wisdom tooth should have come in decades ago swelled up and caused immense pain.  It was too swollen for the dentist to do anything so he gave me antibiotics and I rescheduled the appointment.  I had a lump that was palpable all the way to my neck and I began to worry if I too had some sudden and rare tumor as my wife did at the end of last year.   The pain was such that the best OTC pain killer barely kept me functional.  This medication explicitly states that one should not drink and alcohol during use.  Therefore, I switched back to aspirin for the day I met up with Guy Gin and Steve Martin for drinks.   Was in intense pain the day after and not from the several liter sized Jouki of beer drank the night before.

Not knowing the cause not able to pin point the exact location, at first, had me wondering what it was until Monday when with my tounge I was finally able to dislodge what turned out to be a tooth fragment.  The next day, just hours before a dental appointment, another, larger fragment came out.   Searching online reveled that while not usual, it is not uncommon for tooth fragments to be expelled days, week, months, and something years after extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth, especially a lower one.  Nowhere did I read of it taking 3 decades for this to happen.  I brought the fragments in to the dentist and he was quite surprised.  Done I thought, with this episode, there are sore bumps under my gums once again this morning.  Looks like there are more fragments being expelled.  Yeah.

This is the main reason for me not posting recently despite having a lot of material.  I planned on posting some of it now but a letter in the mail takes precedence.  Steve, this will likely affect you too as it will any irregular employee in Japan.

Completely unbeknownst to me until an hour ago, on October 1st this year Japan is instituting and invoicing system.  Apparently, I am a sole proprietor of an unregistered business for my English lessons arranged directly between myself and a corporation to teach their employees but not for teaching English at various universities.  Not what I had planned to do today, I am now suddenly;y having to learn about something that I knew nothing about a have no interest in.  What I have learned thus far is grave.  Apparently, for this employer, from whom the letter is from, to be able to claim sales tax credit for what they pay me, I must provide them with my registration number.  To get this number, I must register as a bonafide business, which as I understand comes with a cost and I know opens me up to horrendous consequences with the tax office of my native land, the US and its IRS.  I asked my wife to read the letter and she said that she has ben reading about this in Japanese news.  It is being reported that many independent and small businesses will not be able to comply with this and thus derived out of business.  It is not looking good.

As we have seen in many countries including the US and Japan, covid restrictions killed off many of the remaining sole proprietor businesses as well as independent and small businesses while providing huge financial benefits to huge chain stores.  Prior to the panic, California and Japan have passed various laws adversely affecting gig and independent workers.  Now we have not really a tax system but a tax reporting system that is reported to kill off more of us.  They really are working over time to eliminate not only we small fry and the services and goods we provide but by extension also the choices consumers have left.  No more asking the neighborhood native English speaker for English lessons, you must go to large Eikawa corporation and context through them for a teacher, at Greater expense and less flexibility.

Folks, we are as if on the Titanic.   The third class passenger’s drowned bodies are already floating below decks as we second class passengers are starting to suffer the same fate while 1st class passengers are drinking cov tails with ice from tree iceberg that will kill them too.

We do not have much time left.  Fight with reckless abandon or enjoy each moment left as if it were your last, at that last moment is fast approaching.

Now back to studying the details of this latest attack on my ability to earn a living.