JOKE ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE

You know how in Japan when you buy a set of joke glasses with a big nose, mustache and flaring eyebrows to wear when you walk into your house at night after work while your young granddaughters are visiting, who have never in their whole lives seen such a getup, can present strategic problems.

Well the main strategic problem for me was that if the grandies heard me rumbling up from the station in the dark on my motorcycle, they might turn on the deck lights, run out on the deck and yell "Welcome home, Bobu-chan!" while I'm parking the bike masklessly, and so my joke would be shot because I'd have no time or place - with all the deck lights, sharp peering eyes and what not - to slip the facial gear on.

On the other hand, if I were to enmask at the station, then motorcycle up the mountain through the dark I'd be cool, because who's gonna see me sneakdriving up with huge nose and flaring eyebrows, since none of my neighbors up there drives down at that hour, so when I got home it would be a great joke whether the girls heard me and came out or not, so that's what I did.

You know how Robbie Burns commiserated with that little mouse under his plow? Well there was no big Robbie up there in my case, but I've never seen so many cars come downmountain full of wide-eyed neighbors just as I was motorcycling up into their high beams wearing a Grouchoface, probably a first for this particular mountainside. Fortunately there were no accidents, as far as I could tell, other than to my reputation as a serious foreign fellow, but the grandies never believed that anyway.