So there I was, standing in front of the train station exit, trying to force the pocket zipper of my gym pants open. Normally I don't wear my gym clothes to the gym, but today I had been thinking it might save time to do so. I put down my gym bag and tackled the broken zipper with both hands, still no luck. Of course my train pass was inside my pocket and now I was stuck inside the train station, terrific. Asking the guy at the ticket window for help in my broken Japanese would surely only serve to make a ridiculous situation look worse, so I pulled harder, nothing. However I was to receive help from an unexpected source, the police. I had only been wrestling with the zipper for about 3 minutes when I was suddenly surrounded by three sinister-looking, undercover policemen. The lead guy, dressed like a businessman, flashed me his badge, an insincere smile and asked me what the problem was. Explaining what the heck I was doing took a bit of time, but when I managed to do so they looked at each other as if to say, eyeah right, nice story'. Another guy, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, lent me his ballpoint pen and I managed to get the zipper unstuck and my train pass out, proving that I wasn't a nutcase. I wasn't free yet though, first they interrogated me for about five minutes about what I was doing in Japan, and not until I had shown them my foreigner identification card was I free to go. In retrospect I guess I might have looked kind of weird, no shower, unshaven, wearing my dress shoes with my gym clothes, yanking my pants aroundc. Anyway it did make me feel somewhat better that the police are keeping an eye out around the busy train stations these days, good work guys. A warning to those of you who didn't come through the front door when entering Japan, don't loiter around the train stations....

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