The Butt Ugly Weblog

This trip's Lost In Translation -moment

Last night, to my utter dismay, I realized that one of the lights the hotel room would not go out, no matter how hard I pushed the buttons. I had an internal committee meeting about smashing the lamp or calling the reception, but in the end decided to just sleep and complain about the whole thing in the morning.

Today, after a long stretch of meetings I walked to my room, preparing to change clothes for an evening out. I enter my dark room in the 28th floor, illuminated only by the bright lights of the Tokyo skyline, and then I see the hotel phone flashing a red light, like an evil eye.

It says "Messages."

I lift the receiver, and press the messages button. It rings for a long time, and then a Japanese voice answers. She says something rapidly, and I apologize and continue in English: "I have messages?"

She tells me to wait a moment, disappears, and then returns.

"The right is prepared" she says, pronouncing carefully.

I stop. Have my left-wing connections been discovered? Is voting Green illegal in this country? Is my secret identity revealed and are my contacts in danger? Shall I eat immediately the picture of Che I carry everywhere, before cops bust in through the windows?

I must know. I carefully produce the secret code, known to all my co-conspirators to check if she is one of us.

"Err, what?" I say.

She takes a deep breath, and tries to be as clear as possible.

"The right is prepared" she says, stressing the words.

Ah. A small lightbulb lights inside my head, and I thank her, hang up and breathe a sigh of relief.

Yes, it's a dark room. I flick the switch, and lights go on and off at will. The light really seems to be repaired.