Gaijin Helper Guy

I'm turning into a pretty helpful guy to local gaijin (foreigners) in the video store. A few nights ago, I was looking for a video, when I overheard one gaijin ask the other if they had ever heard of Novocain with Steve Martin. He other said "No, but it must be funny". Lucky I was there to save their night. I dove across the room knocking the video out of her hands screaming "Noooooooooo!". I guess Steve Martin is hurting feeling the pinch of the economy, cause he sure chose the suckiest roll in that one.

Anyway, that's not the main point. The next night, as I was returning the video, there was an Australian woman having trouble with the video-store-guy who was trying to charge her 2,000 yen for a late fee. She was saying things like "Eiga.... yesterday.... hire (that's Australian for "rent")... wakarimasen!". At first I didn't know if I should get involved as it looked like she was trying to pull the old "can't speak Japanese so I'm untouchable" routine. Who am I to mess things up for her? But after awhile it became apparent that she was being sincere, and so I helped her talk to the video store guy.

Her story was that she had returned the video a week earlier, but the video store computer said it was returned that morning. The toughest part was pretending that I believed her. I actually don't think she was "lying" simply that she returned the wrong video a week ago, and returned this one today without realizing. Anyway, after a while of neither side budging, and me being stuck in the middle, I asked the video guy if there is any chance the computer is wrong? "No." What do they usually do in this situation? "This has never happened before." It only took another 3 minutes of standing around and the Australian girl almost in tears before the video store guy told me in Japanese "OK she doesn't have to pay this time... but next time we wont allow it!". I translated.... "Please wait here while they call the police. If you refuse to pay they will have you arrested."

I wonder if she ever stopped crying...