If I End Up Dead, You Now Know Why

On any given cold evening during the week I usually take solace in a heaping bowl of mutton curry and a big chunk of garlic nan. The spiciness of the curry along with the freshly baked nan is usually just what I need to keep my next facebook status from becoming "I'm Tired of Being Wet and Cold" followed by a series of equal signs and opening parentheses.

Tonight was much the same, only this evening was the first time I thought "Well, I never thought I'd be using that speed on my window wiper settings," as I drove down the dark, flooded streets of Murakami, thunder and lightning holding up the rear of our soundtrack in this scene.

Nicole and I arrive innocently enough at the curry shop. I order my mutton curry and nan and start eating when a young man enters stage left to the tinkling of tiny little bells affixed the doors at the front of the restaurant. He sits down at the table next to ours, proceeds to order in English, which I immediately found very disconcerting mostly because Nicole and I would have to change the topics of our conversation to something that at least closer to what the MPAA would give an R rating to.

Sarada, our friendly neighborhood Nepalese Curry Restaurant Owner comes in again to give the young man his order, when Nicole does that sneaky cover-one-side-of-your-mouth-while-whispering-and-pointing-at-the-person-next-to-you thing to inform me that we're sitting next to Jeff, a teacher from about 20 minutes south.

Aaah, crap, so whatever we say he's going to understand. Time to scale it down to a PG-13. But in the interest of being friendly and neighborly (since I've heard about the man but have yet to meet him and he's supposed to be coming to my Adult English Class this week), when we pull out things together to leave I step over to him and have this short little conversation.

Me:  Ah! Excuse me! Are you Jeff?
Jeff:  Oh! Yes, I am! Are you Bryan?
Me:  Yes! I am! It's nice to meet you!
Jeff:  Nice to meet you! My name is Watanabe.
Me:  ...eh... wha--...huh?
Nicole:  Are you Jeff from two cities over?
Not-Jeff:  No! My name is Watanabe! I work at the Murakami hospital!
Me/Nicole!: Oh! You're not Jeff? We thought you were Jeff! So sorry for interrupting! We thought you were someone else!

And we were on our way.

Cut to five minutes later, driving down an abandoned, dark and rainy road.

Nicole: Bryan... did you tell him your name?
Me: I...uh... well I did, didn't I?
Nicole: No, I don't think you did.
Me: I...uh... I didn't... did I?

[Insert appropriate ominous thunder/lightning combination here]

The man knew my name. HOW DID HE KNOW WHO I AM.

Sometimes I don't lock my door at night because Japan is a pretty safe country. I've decided to make a change in that behavior starting this evening...