Tales of the Unprepared!

OK, as those of you who read my RPGamer columns probably know (and that accounts for like, all but 2 of you I think), this week I was stranded at my aunt's house for the middle of this week. Now, I realize there's a chance members of my family will read this, and get really ticked off, so I remind you that I write this only because it's amusing, and not out of any sort of malice or resentment.

Anyway, the reason I was stranded was that, unbeknownst to me, my aunt's phone had been disconnected, and neither she nor anyone I could get ahold of was willing to give me a lift home until late Thursday night. I actually had a pretty good time once I gave up hope of getting back in time to do the Q&A column, marred only by the absolute lack of anything to eat in the house, and Noah, the Undead Dog.

You see, my aunt has had this dog for something like 15 years now. Around 5 years ago, Noah had some sort of brain tumor causing his ears to gush copious amounts of blood. It is my opinion that he actually died at this point, and that her vet is some sort of necromancer. While no further arbitrary bleeding has since occurred to my knowledge, the dog in question has since gone more or less completely blind and deaf, travels at a top speed of one step per 5 seconds, has had copious amounts of fur fall out revealing bare skin which is slowly turning black, and of course he smells more corpse-like than dogs normally do... which by itself is quite impressive. At one point this hideous canine zombie was standing in front of the kitchen door, evidently wanting to go out. So I opened the door, and he just stood there, completely motionless, for like an hour. My cousin and I were just staring at him, waiting for him to just unceremoniously collapse into full death, but it didn't happen. Then later he decided to go to sleep in the middle of a Robo Rally game.

Enough about me though. That little tale was really just there to fill some space so this next little tale wasn't the only think on the page. Actually, I just thought of something that would have worked just as well but eh, too late. Anyway, the following is a transcript of a letter my cousin sent me today (the one who lives in Japan, not the one with the undead dog):

In other news of people coming -- Phil (one of my cronies from Chicagoland) is now in Tokyo. He called me up yesterday at work to say "Hi, I'm in Tokyo, and I lost my credit card! How do I get to your house?"
Me: "How much cash do you have?"
Phil: "About 90,000 yen"
Me: "Oh, that's plenty. Here's how you get here..."
Phil: "Wait, first could you go on the internet and look up the phone number of the Japan branch of my dad's company? I know a guy there who"
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
(Public phone disconnected cuz he ran out of change)

He called again later:
Me: "Here's the phone number of the compnay. What's up?"
Phil: "I was wrong before. I don't have 90,000 yen, I have 9,000 yen."
Me: "Umm, that MIGHT be enough to stay one night in a capsule hotel and get a meal or two."
Phil: "Yeah, I know. I'm gonna call my parents and ask them to wire me money."
Me: "I don't think you can do that with no Japanese bank account and on a weekend."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

He calls again in the morning:
Phil: "Guess what, I slept in a park!"
Me: "Are you OK?"
Phil: "Sure, it was clean and the homeless people were really polite."
Me: "Do I have to come down there and get you?"
Phil: "No, I borrowed some money from the guy at my dad's company. I should be able to get to you by about"
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

This is a good example of how NOT to plan a vacation!!
Even if he hadn't lost the credit card he probably wouldn't be able to use it. Japan is pretty much cash-only.
I'm awaiting his next phone call to find out what time I should meet him at the train station.

I as planning to change names to protect the innocent, but there's an awful lot of Phils in the world, and my cousin didn't put his name in there. Besides, the only one needing protection there is my cousin for calling his friends cronies, without thinking I'd be posting this for all of them to see.

Oh, and on a fiscal note, to my great shock and slight horror, people have been continuing to throw money my way. The tally is now well past the $30 mark so next month I have to update all the other pages you can get by leaving the /rants/ out of my url... or update one 4 times, or some other permutation, but you know. Heck, if this keeps up between now and next update, I'll even have to go on an adventure! It'd probably have to be the drunk one though if it isn't really early in the week, since RPGs aren't much fun without a few PCs, and I'll be down to just one when my cousin leaves for college in a few days.