your umpteenth-first salary is a desperate thing

I've never been flat broke in my life. I owe it to parents with stable jobs, a house that doesn't run out of food, and friends that are kind enough to loan me a buck or two whenever public transportation becomes "a luxury". By some miracle, I've managed to coast along in life never knowing what it means to be desperately, abysmally, direly out of cash.

I never had to wonder how I'm going to afford my next meal. I never had to spend a sleepless night in my apartment worrying how I'm going to pay for the roof over my head. I never considered the possibility of eviction, civil claims, or even having to say no to a night out for beer. I've never been afraid of being a destitute, because I could never imagine it happening to me.

But it could, I realize now. My mom's is retired, and she along with my sisters are all leagues away. My apartment just got some amazing pots and pans (all thanks to my sister), but nothing in terms of ingredients or even cooking oil (I do have a lot of peanut butter though). And finally, all my friends now are either too far away or, like me, faring for themselves as well.

If I run out of cash here, I'm fucked, is what it is.

So I plan meticulously, with an omniscient excel file that knows on a daily basis how many coins are left in my pockets. I also budget 6 months in advance, with exorbitant buffers and plenty of cash allotted to "backup".

So the transition to the new job had a lot of that planning put in it, and then some more, with a dash of worrying to taste. With preparation, I afforded the move to the new apartment, preparing for 4 overseas friends visiting, a weekend trip home, and miscellaneous costs that come with a new job and new friends. I had to sacrifice any outrageous birthday plans, funneling all my cash to get me through that last week before the first paycheck kicks in. The last canister of fuel that'll get me through this bleak, empty, gap of penniless space, and towards home.

And today was that day. I stayed up until midnight yesterday, doing laundry, whatever, bumming around, pretending not to worry, until midnight struck and I logged onto my Japanese bank account where, rising above the sea of gnarled Japanese characters, was plainly written: 0.

I'm fucked, is what it is.

I ran through my necessary expenses: rent and utilities which will total about a 100 thousand yen. Available resources: if my family could scrounge up that amount, it'll be too late before the rent is due. I don't have friends here who I think could part with that amount of money, nor would I be comfortable at all to ask for that amount of money from a friend. Cash loans are impossible for foreigners, which I unfortunately am. My only option is to confront the HR at work and demand the cash. And I won't take no for an answer.

So I slept, restlessly. And on the next day, took my time going to work, walking casually on the street. I came in late by 10 minutes, with my head recounting every argumentative Japanese phrase I could remember, riddled with the Japanese words for "rent", "salary", and "obligation".

To make thing official, I booted my PC and checked my salary statement to see how much I should've gotten. Since I still had to translate the statement, it took me a while.  But to my most pleasant surprise, after feeding in the elegantly-written Japanese script, the online translator spat out "bank transferred". Stress on the "-ferred". I was palpitating, and could barely input the security code for my bank account to check.

Well, it ended well for me. And all I have to say at the end of the day is your first salary is a magical thing.

Photo credit: Clan Takeda