Sunday, October 04, 2009

Making rivers on a train...

So we were at church all day Friday. Finally got home, packed to leave on Saturday and crashed because Hana's preschool had sports day the next morning. Sports day was scheduled to end around 12:00 and we had to catch a train at 12:55. Our travel would take about 6 hours to get to Kouchi for a Friday evening concert and Sunday morning concert, after which we would turn around and come back home (yes, we sign up for this kind of craziness). Sports day went very smoothly and finished early. We actually got to sit down in a restaurant to have lunch. I was beginning to think this crazy trip might not be so bad.

We boarded a train to the main station in town, and then hopped on a bullet train. Kai slept a good part of the way, all was going well. UNTIL we were pulling in to our stop to get off the bullet train. Hana just casually says, "I think I'll go to the bathroom after we get off the train." and I say, "Okay, sure we can do that." I'm holding Kai (still asleep) and Rocky disappears to throw some trash away when I notice a panicked look on Hana's face. And she says, "Mooooommmmy, I am peeing in my pants." I'm like, "Oh my gosh Hana, STOP, wait!" But I look down and her shoes are filling with pee, beginning to overflow and a huge puddle is forming on the floor beneath her. Have I mentioned that this child has been totally potty trained for more than 3 years and never had an accident after about the first month or two after potty training was done?

You must keep in mind, a bullet train stops at a station for like a minute, and we were slowing down for our stop. If we miss this stop we will have to ride another long ways to the next stop get off and come back (we are on the Nozomi super express which doesn't stop very often) and that will make us late for our concert engagement. I'm holding sleeping Kai and can do nothing like pull a diaper or something out of my bag to start soaking up teetee and there is no train staff person in sight.

At this point I'm standing still in a panic having no idea what to do. I must have looked like a flamingo, motionless and doing nothing, only I had both legs on the ground. Rocky appears again and I tell him to do something but he can't find anything to clean it up and we are like seconds from stopping. I look back and a long line of pee is slowly making it's way down the aisle of the train and people are starting to look back to see what is this liquid running down the aisle beside them.

Finally I see a train staff person coming towards me and tell her what happened. She grabs some paper towels and starts to clean it up and all I can do is apologize and bow profusely, stating that we must get off the train at this stop. All the while row by row, train passengers are looking back and I can see the realization come across their face as to what is this mysterious river running down the aisle. The foreigner stands there apologizing and bobbing her head like a duck fishing in the pond as a little girl stands beside her with her legs spread apart in an uncomfortable stance and little wet footprints are following her.

At this point the train staffer begins to ignore my constant apology as I can see this look of total resentment begins to spread across her face. I know she's thinking, "Why did I have to be the one who came walking through this car at this moment? This is not a part of my job description, cleaning up pee!"

By this time the train is stopping and my last glimpse of the car we were riding in, was the passengers in aisle 2,3,4,5 and 6 staring back at us with disdain, several passengers scrambling to get their bags up off the floor, a line of papers towels following the river of pee and the crumpled nose of the train staffer as she is frantically dropping paper towels and whipping up pee.

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