Weekend release

For cubicle dwelling mammals there is nothing quite like the release of the weekend. And for cubicle-dwelling-foreign-city-living mammals, this seems even truer. Friday afternoons usually contain the following conversation, or something akin to it:

‘What’re you up to tonight?’

‘Nothing, just taking it easy. Maybe grab a quick beer before heading home. Wanna go?’

‘Yeah, sounds good, but just one.’ And right there the night is sealed and there will be more than one beer consumed, more than one bar visited, and probably more than one puzzling question present when you wake.

Take, for example, last Friday night. A former colleague had a bit of a get together to celebrate his new position. The evening started innocuously enough with a simple champagne toast to his future endeavors. A couple more complementary drinks flowed from the bar and the clock seemed to speed up. The party changed shape as new arrivals came in and others departed.

Eventually, the drinks at the party stopped flowing and we staggered into the streets. Around the darkened streets we walked in search of more liquid fortification until we found a well-known bar with a friendly pour. At this point the party was down to two of us – myself and another colleague. He was, to put it somewhat mildly, in worse shape than I was.

He had reached his limit and needed to head into the awful sleep that comes after champagne, beer, wine and beer have been ingested. So we wandered from the confines of the bar toward the closed train station. Hours were left before the trains would run, but taxis abounded. On the way was also, thankfully, a public toilet was to be found.

As I used the surprisingly clean, but by no means spotless facilities, I heard behind me the curious clamor of climbing. I turned to see my colleague peering over the locked door of a stall. He had mounted himself rather precariously over the door and was extending an arm downward. I watched with no small amount of bemusement as he pulled up a large plastic bag.

He hauled his newfound prize over the top of the door, tugging hard as it squeezed between the ceiling and the door’s top edge. Once it was free, he swung the bag of ill-gotten goodies over his shoulder and headed out into the night. He hailed a cab and clutched his bounty in his lap, telling the driver which way was home.

Then this morning I received this email, which said it all about the weekend of a cubicle-dweller in Tokyo: I've got more toilet paper than a supermarket at my place! Totally wasted last Friday. What happened??