Ten Tiny Missions

Couldn’t sleep last night because the heat was like something alive, and Abby Winters plus Miley’s sideboob weren’t cutting it, so I spent the dark hours falling down Japan prep videos. Six days until my flight and suddenly I needed to know everything, or at least convince myself I did.

First I followed some guy with absurdly long hair through Super Potato in Akihabara—the kind of place where ancient consoles and cartridges stack so high you either start crying or get hard, sometimes both. That’s where I learned about the Game Boy Light, Japan-only, backlit, the last real one. Mine died years back—picked it up with Ines at a flea market. If I can find another cheap enough, I’m getting it.

Got lost in videos about old phones with actual antennas, sumo wrestlers, mid-90s Tokyo. What to do on planes. What to do when you land. How cool the city is. How beautiful. How charming.

Sari wrote to me—she never sleeps—about phones. You need one in Japan, she said, because otherwise you vanish into crowds and can’t find anyone. SoftBank rents them, but better: they rent SIM cards you drop into your own iPhone. Calls, texts, data. Good to know.

I handled the basics. Travel insurance done. Credit card appeased with metaphorical blood so it doesn’t do its usual thing. Got a haircut scheduled so I don’t look like a caveman when I get there. Last thing I need is becoming a character in some Japanese reality show.

One thing’s left: missions. I don’t want to just wander around for five weeks like an idiot. I need objectives, tasks to hunt down, so I come home feeling like I accomplished something. Find a real working underwear vending machine. Throw a live Pikachu off Tokyo Tower. Get a blowjob from someone in a Hello Kitty costume. You suggest them—I’ll pick ten.