Alexander's

I'm sure that all of you[^1] can remember the last time I got a parcel form back home. Someone[^2] forgot to add a name to my address and I ended up having a lot of fun explaining, that I'm indeed the person the package was addressed to. I even asked all my friends to really write all the important data on the address and not to forget the name, room number, house number, street name or other small things like that.

So I was very delighted when I found a new letter in my inbox, explaining that a certain Mr. Pauschenwein Gernot had a new parcel waiting for him -- Wait I'm Paulsen Alexander and Gernot is just a friend of mine from Austria. Incidentally the same friends whose girlfriend thought that in a small town of 12 million people, like Tokyo, a full address was overkill and gave the postman something to think about with an address in Western letters -- without my name.

I'm really glad I have such good friends. Not only do they regularly send me presents, no they also see to it, that my japanese skills get advanced by pitting me against our house keeper, that can barley talk english.

Yes I can definitely use the extra motivation. Nothing makes me learn as fast as a present I want to have and a house keeper that doesn't want to give it to me.

I go to the housekeeper and explain my situation. A friend from Austria send the parcel and there probably was a mixup with the credit card, or he could only send it to his own name or something like this, but I know him and want to pick up my parcel.

So when is your friend returning?
Never he is in Austria.
When did your friend return to Austria?
He never was in Japan.

This is going to be fun I can already sense it. Ten minutes, a quite good description what the parcel is, what might be inside and three signatures later he decides to give me my present and just as he hands it to me his eyes brigten up with understanding:

Is he your brother?
No why?
You have the same Name.

After fifteen minutes of explaining why there is a wrong name on the address, but it still is my parcel I find out he did never bother to read more than the first three letters?!? Apparently it was to bothersome to read all these strange Romanji. I could just have picked the parcel up and the house keeper would have never noticed!

[^1]: Ok at least the ones that can read German [^2]: I'm not mentioning names here