Not so fun Friday night.

Every Monday and Friday Matt tutors two elementary school kids in English for an hour while I go to the grocery store and read a book or listen to music. This Friday was just like any other, until it wasn't.
I dropped Matt off at the boys house and then drove to the store. After buying our food I sat in my car and read Paper Towns by John Green, who is mostly responsible for my renewed interest in reading quality books. With about 10mins to go before Matt's lessons end I decide to drive over and wait in front of the students house, like normal. I had been nervous every since I dropped off Matt because if he needed me he wouldn't be able to reach me by phone. My cell phone had died at some point during the day and I just learned about this fact 2 mins after my husband left the car. I promise I charged my cell phone that very morning!
Anyway...I put my book away, moved the drivers seat back into position for driving, and turned the key in the ignition. That's right...nothing happened...well my car did make an awful "my battery is dead" noise but that's about it. Not only am I stuck in the store parking lot, I have no way of contacting anyone for help. stupid cell phone! At this point it's dark and cold and I am looking for anyone who walks by who might be willing to help a foreigner with their clearly (have the car hood up) broken car. After a few minuets of no success finding help I walk back into the store trying to figure out what I can do. My Japanese is horrible and I don't know anyone in the area. Did I mention the store is about a 35 min drive from my apartment?...closest grocery store. At this point I have begun to panic a little bit, my husband is waiting for me, I can't get in contact with him, I can't contact anyone, and I have no working mode of transportation. This was not fun.

Here is when my luck changes...and why being an English teacher is awesome! I see one of my students, a third year, well, a third-grader from Nishi Takane Elementary school. She is walking out of the store with her mother and little sister when I am walking into the store. I smile and say hello but keep walking...why would a mother with two kids, 9 and 5 I believe, want to deal with helping the foreigner with car trouble on a Friday night...she clearly has places to go and things to do. She clearly did not feel the same way. My student's mother comes walking back into the store and asks me if I need help with my car. Now I have someone who is willing to help me! What's interesting about my interactions with my student's mother (still don't know her name!!) is that I don't speak Japanese, and she doesn't speak English. We had a little bit of vocabulary in each others language but it was enough. I explained my car, my cell phone, and my husband. She explained that she didn't have what I needed (a jumper cable) but that she would call her friend and he would help. So for the next 15 mins I am sitting in this lady's Land Rover with her two children talking about where I live, where I am from, what food people eat in America, where I teach English, various ideas about the drawings her 5 year old was making in the back seat, along with drawing pictures of food with my student (also don't know her name!) Her friend eventually arrived and jumped my car back into shape at which point I did a whole lot of bowing and "Domo Arigato Gosaimashita" before I drove off to pick up my husband.
On the way to pick Matt up I see him walking down the road towards the store. I was over 30mins late to pick him up and he had begun worrying about my safety to the point of attempting to walk to the store to find me while our neighbor JD was on his way to pick him up to go check the hospital, if I was no where to be found at the store. My husband had a plan! Matt and I got to explain our stories to each other on our drive home.
It was a horrible experience I do not want to have again. But I did get to experience the kindness of strangers. Since I am an English teacher at local schools those who know that fact, though might not actually know me, are not afraid to greet me at the store, and in this case help me on a cold, dark Friday night. I often have my students and their parents see me at the store and stop to bow and say hello, though I never know their names. To be fair I have so many students at three different schools, two schools I only visit twice a month.
I feel guilty that I don't know my rescuers' names, but I already have plans to provide them with thank you gifts when I teach at Nishi Takane elementary again.
I am so glad my car trouble was only a 40 minute inconvenience. I don't know what I would have done if this mother of two, who doesn't even speak English, wasn't willing to stop and inconvenience herself by helping the local English teacher with her car on a Friday night. Thank you lady!