There are a lot of problems I don't have and boy am I grateful. For instance, I live in a country where I speak the native language. Therefore I can find a restroom without too much trouble.

Today, while getting rejected repping tile, I decided to stop at a coffee shop and make some phone calls to line some leads up for tomorrow morning. In the place where I stopped, everybody spoke Italian. The guy working at the counter spoke good English. He had a sign up advertising home made "Nudle Soup".

"I bet that soup is good." I said,

"You like a sample?" he asked.

"No thank you. But, you know, noodle is one of those hard words to remember how to spell. You spell it this way, see?" and I wrote it down for him on a napkin.

"Oh, ya! I see. I'ma got to change that. Thanks'a. Here's a your hot chocolate. Don't burn yourself, nokay?"

I sat down with my hot chocolate, which was very good on such a dreary day. After awhile a young man came out and began to sweep and mop the floor. The other people in the shop only spoke to him in Italian and he only answered in Italian, so I'm thinking his grasp on the language might not have been that good.

Presently, an older Japenese man came in. He was impecably dressed in a suit and tie. His wife, also well dressed, and delicately made up waited outside. "Excuse me." he said to the young man sweeping the floor, ennunciating with great care. "May I use your ladies room?"

The Young Italian looked thunderstruck. Could he have possibly heard this man asking to use the ladies room? I could see him thinking, no, surely he means something else. He stood there trying to puzzle it out. The Japanese man asked the same thing again, ennunciating just as carefully. The Italian guy looked at me in desperation.

"Rest room. He's asking if you have a public rest room. Bathroom." I said. I could immediately see the problem. He was asking on his wife's behalf, she was too embarrassed to ask a man herself. Hell, I know how she feels. I'm a shameless American and I feel funny when I have to ask a man.

"Oh, ah!" Okay the young man got it but then didn't feel confident enough to give an answer. He went to get the counter guy. The Japenese lady outside looked perfectly composed, like she was just waiting for a friend outside the shop. I hoped it wasn't "an emergency". I suppose ladies in their 60's are prone to the same problems the world over no matter how calm they've trained themselves to look.

The counter guy, came up and grasped the situation, "Ya, ya, of course'a no problem. Inna back to the left" he said.

The man signeled to his wife and told her what the counter man said in a whisper. I've never seen anyone walk that fast without appearing to hurry. That's got to be like a dying art form among Japenese ladies.

The husband gave me a grateful nod while he was waiting to acknowlege that I'd tried to help.

"You know, it's almost always okay, in a public place like this, to not ask." I said, hoping I was sounding friendly and "by the way"

"Oh no. Is better to ask. Sometimes get trouble. Sometimes someone in there smoking the pot, you see."

Oh dear. Well, yes, that can be a problem. I guess in Japan it's polite to give people fair warning so they can get rid of their marijuana ciggarette.

I think from now on I'm just gonna mind my own business.