I had my first disgusting lunch today. Up to now its been very good, and at worst just had some strange veggies or pickled radish… unpleasant, but no big deal. Today I got a particularly thin-looking stew, some pickled cabbage, and two breaded whole fish, maybe six or seven inches long, the girth of two fingers. I’d gotten little whole fish in my lunches before, but they were tiny, like the length of a mostaciollo noodle. They’re sort of crunchy (what with the bones) and not the best, but edible.

Well, the breading looked excellent on these fish, so I bit into one, while the students told me what each part of the fish is supposed to be good for (head makes you smarter, tail makes you faster, stomach makes you healthy. Always start with the head). Tasted like I expected, nothing special, but then I noticed a weird texture. I looked down at the bite, and saw DOZENS OF LITTLE WHITE EGGS POURING OUT OF ITS BELLY.

Like large grains of sand. Or those little white speckly things you see in topsoil. It was horrible. But, its all I had to eat, so I closed my eyes and just ate the rest, promising to myself that I wouldn’t look anymore.

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For dinner I was standing at the open microwave, eating the reheated taco meat straight from the container, and the doorbell rang. “Chotto matte,” I called out, swallowing and placing the tupperware back in the microwave. I dashed to the door and opened it to see a middle aged dude with a name-tag around his neck. He laughed out loud when he saw me. With a grin he pulled out a newspaper, asking me if I was interested in basic basic, japanese. I laughed, and said in my broken japanese, “Don’t read kanji! Too difficult!” He laughed, nodding, and went on his way. I went back to my taco meat.