Gosh, are you sure 4 loud speakers are enough?

It’s election time here in Obihiro. Not sure what the election is for. All I know is there is 38 or so candidates and they each have their own van which sports no less than 4 loud speakers affixed to the roof. A loud speaker attached to each corner of the exterior roof surface of a van would be pretty harmless if a man or woman shouting keigo (honorrific Japanese) at you as it slowly creeps through your neighborhood didn’t back it. There’s been at least one of those per candidate spreading noise pollution thru our fair city all week and it’s getting downright tiring. The thing that really rots my socks is that all they have time to say is their name, good morning, afternoon or evening, thank you very much and what roughly translates into please treat me kindly. Maybe if you haven’t woken my son up from his much needed naps on no less than 5 occasions this week I’d have some kind thoughts for you but right now I’m thinking about what objects in my fridge compliment your campaign colors.

So to make matters worse. As of right now there’s one such aforedescribed van parked outside of our building as crankypants is sleeping. So I go outside with the video camera with hopes that a foreigner video taping them will weird them out enough to drive them away. It works on one silver haired, older guy but then the candidate herself runs right up to the building with two of her neon green clothed designated wavers and starts talking to me. In English. While I'm getting the whole thing on video. My only opportunity to tell them to keep it down and I giggle girlishly and wish her luck. Yet another Aw Fer Fuck Sakes moment. So I come back in, sit down at this very seat and the doorbell rings. It’s some guy, trying to sell me something I don’t need and now Keenan is crying in the background. Keenan slept through multiple loudspeaker-encrusted vans blaring right outside his window only to be woken up by the doorbell. Classic. Now I’m gonna go figure out how to upload the video to this blog. After of course I go to the kimono shop.