To prevent a build up of bicycles near the train station the city employs a bunch of old grandmas to walk around the station and put tags on bicycles that have been parked near the station. At random times the bicycle collection truck comes by and takes all the tagged bicycles to an impound area outside of the town. If your bicycle is among the ones taken you have to go to the impound and pay 2500 yen (about $25) to get it back. With the large amount of bicycles in Japan this little tag and snag operation is a gold mine.

A little more about the grandmas. They wear these white jackets with a big circle with a bicycle crossed out on it. Imagine a no smoking sign, but replace the cigarette with a bicycle and you get the idea. They also wear these arm bands which are ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the amount of makeup these old women smear all over themselves. I'm dealing with clowns here. They carry around in their hand a bunch of the red tags just walking around tagging bicycles that they think have been there for a while. Ever see those office linebacker commercials? Well I'd like to do that to some of these bicycle nazi grandmas.

Damned bicycle nazi grandmas tagged my bicycle at 8:05am and unfortunately the random collection truck came by at precisely 9:45am, only 1hr 40mins after it got tagged, and took it away. I used to leave my bicycle in the same place every damn day, but now I can't because those greedy grandmas want to tag it and get their money. I went to the impound station after I got back from work and couldn't find my trusty bicycle where I had left it. I gave them a fuss and pretended not to understand what they were saying. The impound station is run by, yup you guessed it, a bunch of grandpas (presumably the grandmas' other halves). I knew that actually I was in the wrong for parking my bicycle where I shouldn't have been parked, but kept giving them a hard time about it. They told me I should park it at one of the pay garages. I told them that's too expensive and "incon-f**king-venient," but I don't think they understood.

But when you think about it, these people are actually in the wrong taking hard working people's bicycles and demanding money to get them back. I work here and spend most of my money in this country all while doing them a service. And this is what I get. Those grandma's better watch their humpbacks.