A Whole Bloody Mess

Gentlemen be warned.

I know life sometimes seems perfect, and to some, my life seems perfect in Japan. And I am just here to say, well it is. Ok well it is most days. Some things could just happen to anyone anywhere, but it just brings the message home that you can't escape everything, and coming to Japan doesn't make you immune. Humiliation just seems to follow me.


Pretty real life story here.
Some days are more rosy colored than others, and yesterday was all kinds of rose colored. The red rose kind. This particular stored happened yesterday. And I tell it as I let all my laundry hang out to dry in every sense of that phrase. The day started out as I walked with an office member to my new school for the year. My elementary schools got changed a bit. I have 3 schools I attend: a junior high school (middle school), and two elementary schools. One of my elementary schools got switched out for another one recently, so on my first visit to the new school, I got a personal escort to show me the way, as well as to review my first lesson to make sure all was right in the universe. Everything was. The school was nice enough. The teachers, kind. I even saw a friendly familiar face among the teachers as I stumbled over my introduction in Japanese. The kids were super cute and genki too, which is just the best kind. My first lesson only went with a minor hitch. The lesson went as so:
I would first greet them and then we would play a bit of a guessing game for them to earn my name, sort of similar to hangman for the lettering and spaces, but hangman was ruled as too gruesome a game to officially play in school, so there was no set penalty/death. Before you ask, it is too gruesome since it involves someone hanging and Japanese people just don't need any more influence for those kinds of actions. So after achieving my name, I move on to a quick introduction. In which they continue their guessing with where I live and how old I am. I do a quicker introduction of my family and proceed with an ice breaker game. I give them all a piece of paper and have them write 3 things they like. These kids are grade 6 and some of them are up to the challenge, but not all just so you understand the level. I help the ones not quite up to it and encourage others to write in romanji. We then cumple them up and have a little snow ball fight and then everyone finds one and we do the little game. It goes where one person stands up and says 'My name is _______. I like....[reading from the found paper]'. The only hitch with this was one little girl could not find a paper and get silently distressed. More so as the class progresses. And then she breaks down into tears when she hears her paper knowing she couldn't fit into the game. I quickly design my own paper and give it for her to read and then have her pick on a friend to go next. I hold her hand the entire time. She is reduced to the sobbing hiccups by the end and I could not feel worse for her. This was in the last 3 minutes or so of class, so it otherwise went by really well. The office member of the company I work for said that the lesson was rather good and gave a slight suggestion to avoid the little fiasco in the future, and that was that. Everyone departed and I relaxed. Whew crisis averted. Time to mentally prepare myself for the next class.
I begin wiping the chalkboard and sneeze from the dust a few times. And then, that's when. I felt something wet between my legs. Not going where you are thinking boys. I am feeling that 'Ohhhhh SHIT' feeling right now with 5 minutes to go before my next class. I think to myself, well maybe it is not so bad, maybe it will hold out until after the next class when I will have a 20 minute break to go and clean up. I sit down. Then I notice I have a few little spies from the first grade. We play a little game of peekaboo and I scare them off a few times, each time with them getting bolder. I finally give chase and capture one and lift him into the air letting out a maniacal laugh. That moment. I maybe have 2 minute left of my break. And I felt that sinking feeling again. I knew it was worse. By a lot.
I let him down. Scan the hall for the toilet and I am out of luck. It's the mens room. The toilet is down stairs. I scare off the boys one last time. I don't want them to witness anything so if they are running screaming, all the better. And I make a dash for it. I can tell the damage once I get to the toilets. Its bad. There is blood all on the outsides of my crotch. Panties are soaked. Balls. And for anyone before you ask, yes, girls do tend to know when it is coming. However this was more like the second coming of the Red Seas as they washed up on Panty Bay. I mean I had just finished this business yesterday. Right?? Well guess not. So I sit there bleeding trying to minimize the damage and scrub my panties out a bit. If they are dry they can't do any more damage to my pants. Now the mirror and the sinks to this bathroom are shared by both the girls and the boys. They are also open to the hallway and the elements and every single person passing by. I stick a wad of toilet paper between my legs and pray that I will make it. I dress and head for the common sinks. I check myself in the mirror there. Ok it's pretty bad, but if i pinch my but, hopefully I can make it through the next class.
I return the class just as the last person was filing in. Great impression for my first day. How will they ever like me? Ok, don't despair, I can salvage this. I get in and do a fantastic class. I automatically know that this one will be my favorite. They are super genki and active and I am loving it. It's just fantastic. It was pretty much all thanks to this one boy, Fukutaro. He was pretty exceptional in English, but he was a class act and funnily enough, every single thing he said was wrong when he guessed. He was so comical about it, it made me so relaxed and the class cracking up. Hopefully no one noticed.
At last, when the class is over, I make another mad dash first to the teachers room to get that life saving tampon, that has never more looked like on of those life preservers with its little string when thrown out to sea. Pretty apt metaphor there when I think about it. I undress and review the damage. And sweet night, my pants are red for 4 inches down. Ok. Right. I have 20 minutes to fix this. I can't walk out of the toilet room with my pants off to wash them in the sink since EVERYONE will see me, and to make it even worse, it just happens to be parents day. Man, I really wish I could be making some of this up. School changing. First day. Reviewed. Toilets with no private sink (if there was a teacher toilet, I was not told). Parents day. ONE of those must surely be made up right?! So anyways, what had happened was the blood just smeared all around wreaking havoc upon the lightest pair of khaki pants I own. It really would be too much for the story if they were white wouldn't it? Well I was a small bit lucky there. Really wish I had worn my blue pants now. Too bad I spilled curry juice on them last night.
So what now? I can't go two more classes and the rest of the day with bloody pants that everyone can see right? Correct. I go to town on that fresh roll of toilet paper and as I wondered what my company would think if I just went home after being reviewed and if they would understand, but then again this is a new school, but hey this is an emergency, which would look worse, maybe the worker who reviewed my lesson hadn't gone too far and could bring be a pair of pants, yeah right, that is also pretty embarrassing, well at least shes a woman. In the end of all my conscious thought, I decided to stay, going home would be possibly an hour and a half adventure and then everyone would see my blood stained butt on the way home too. Humiliation. So I stayed in the stall and scrunched up the toilet paper and...dipped it in the toilet water. Try not to wretch. And started scrubbing. I went through several hand fulls of the stuff and if you don't know how well toilet paper just manages to stay together when wet, well it just doesn't hold a candle to Brawn or Bounty or any other paper towel you can think of. The stuff is miserable and I am just shredding it. After a while I deem it sufficient or just that there was no more time to be spent scrubbing with the remaining minutes I had. And started to scrub and vigorously pat dry with some dry toilet paper.
I redressed best I could and tried not to think about my toilet water washed pants and checked myself in the mirror. Great. Just peachy. It looks like I wet myself. And not the potentially cover-able bit from before where if I just hiked up my pants a bit and pinched my butt cheeks everything would be unnoticeable  We are talking like you clearly have water all over your crotch and butt-seem. It makes me wonder how bad/noticeable everything was before I washed it. Well I suppose it is better than the alternative. I get to class before all the students more or less sprinting there so that the kids didn't see my pants and start telling everyone that the new gaijin teacher wet herself. I strategically place the desks and a trash bin atop of it and a few other things to hide the view of my crotch. I also found an old grimy dust clothe that I repurposed to a continuation of trying to dry my crotch. I stop what could have been a pretty embarrassing situation/action before the students came in and found me like that.
I continued to teach the class hiding most of the time, but to be honest, I kind of think the teacher, a young-ish male and also in charge of me more or less for that school (he is the English-teacher coordinator), might have seen. But there is a small trick you can do with the students, make your face interesting enough and keep them entertained,  and they will never really concern themselves with things below your face. Be dynamic. I gave it my all. I didn't really see if any student gave hint that he or she knew my secret, so I think I was safe. Perhaps midway through the class, my pants were dry and the damage was covered. It just cost me pride and gained me some humility. It is a terrible exchange rate between the two and I would not really suggest it, but I suppose it is good to have currency in both sometimes.
So I survived the class and the following one, and the rest of the day as a matter of fact. No my pants weren't fully free from staining, it was just one of those days, but it was light enough that unless someone was giving me a 'dat ass' look, I don't think any one would notice. They didn't even smell that bad with the toilet water and all. Or I suppose it is possible that when you just smell so horrid, you become a bit acclimated to it and everyone else can smell your putrid stink. I have no idea. Everyone was really kind to me, whether they knew or not, for the rest of the day. I did think I saw a few of the teachers who saw those particular classes giving me a weird glance, but I couldn't be sure so I just held my head high and carried on.

TL;DR: some days are just a whole bloody mess.