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If my mother is reading this: First of all, let me clear this out. NO, I wasn’t drunk and NO, I didn’t get into any physical fights with anyone.

Last Saturday - at around 09:30am - I went to a 24-hour family restaurant near one of those dinky little stations one could find all over Tokyo. The reason for dragging myself out of my warm bed (well not really BED, I just sleep on a mattress on the floor nowadays, actually!) was to teach Arabic to this older Japanese woman who is panicking because she has got an Arabic language exam in the first week of February. (strange, huh?). Waking up by 8.00am on a Saturday morning in a Tokyo January morning is something I would not wish upon my anyone; even my worst of enemies. Neither is teaching something as technical as Arabic grammar to someone in her late 50s is not particularly my idea of a fun activity for a Saturday morning. Mind you, as a college student in his early 20s who had a musical recital the day before, I do have my own reasons for this disposition.

Just when that first cup of coffee was working its magic on me, I heard a really loud grunt from one of the neighboring tables. It was a Japanese youth, in his mid-20s, dressed in a leather coat, leather trousers and ridiculously pointy leather boots. His bright brown hair, obviously colored, was ruffled up and prickly; give him an air of cockiness. His forehead pasted to the surface of his table; he was drunk. Either that, or he was a really good actor with a hidden agenda.

As he suddenly “woke up” and walked out of the front door in very drunken steps - without paying - a skinny, polite waiter ran after him and said, “Sir! Excuse me!”. At this point, the drunken rooster-head guy came back in, stood at the counter, and screamed at the waiter something about him “trying to cheat him out of his money” and that he had already paid hours ago (which was not true). The embarrassed and overly-polite waiter realized that it was useless trying to reason with this particular customer - following the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT policy - apologized and said that the customer is free to go. In response to this, the drunken 20something year old thought that the waiter was insulting his intelligence, swings a drunken right-handed punch at the face of the unexpecting waiter; clipping him just under his nose. The really goofy rings the drunken customer was wearing resulted in a cut on the waiter’s upper lip. At this point, all the customers fell dead silent. The manager first crept around the tables of all the customers and whispered to everyone that we should sit in our seats and not get involved so that no one is hurt; the police were already called and were on the way. He also apologized for this situation. Then, the manager went up to the drunken customer and asked him what the problem was. The drunken customer grabbed the manager from the throat and shook him violently. At this point, the already-punched-out-and-bleeding waiter stood up and tried to intercept the barbaric intentions of the drunken customer. The waiter was shoved and punched again.

Then, a petite waitress ran out to “save” her manager, but was met with the  angry glare and screams of the drunken 20something year old. He let go of the manager, and ran after the waitress! I couldn’t believe that this was going on in front of me on a Saturday morning.

Finally, at that very moment, the police had run in to save the day. They ran into and out of the kitchen, clutching the drunken customer from his arms. He knew that he was in trouble and that he had done “something” wrong. A few minutes later, he was taken away; much to the relief of everyone.

One of the waitresses ran out, and scrubbed the unfortunately brave waiter’s blood off the tiled floors. All the other waitresses and customers alike were shaking. The 50-something year old student - drenched in cold sweat - was with was clutching at her chest; she looked as though her heart was going to burst out of her. She told me that she was terrified but wanted to continue studying. The waiter who was punched was asked to take the rest of the day off by the manager. The petite waitress who was chased into the kitchen by that psycho drunk left for a couple of hours, but came back again with a beaming smile as if nothing had happened. The other staff were forced to keep smiling and working as if nothing had happened; leaving us customers paralyzed in our seats, continuing to have our morning sandwiches and coffee.