With Japan entering the new month with a higher sales tax, people are beginning to feel the squeeze. In addition, April is the time of year when many people make big changes in their lives such as moving out on their own. This is already an expensive time made even more so by the economic climate.
One such person is Omocoro writer ARuFa. He feels that he has successfully come up with a way to reduce your water bill drastically by taking baths that would only cost 0.0000076 yen (US$0.000000075). This is his story.
AruFa: “Hello, I’m ARuFa. I have a black bar across my eyes, but that’s not why I’m talking to you today. I’ve recently moved into an apartment by myself. Like anyone who moves out of their parents’ home I tremble due to loneliness at night and pull out nose hairs to stave off the stinging pain of homesickness.”
ARuFa: “Aside from these typical problems, I’ve found something even more terrifying about living on your own. This!”
ARuFa: “’It’s just a faucet’ you might be thinking, but actually it’s a silent thief in the night who seduces you with its cool pleasures and steamy encounters only to have pilfered your savings by the end of the month. The faucet is a foul temptress who has left many a soul penniless with overwhelming utility costs.”
AruFa noticed that the more water that came out of the taps the more his bill would come to. He deduced that not making so much water come out could help this situation, but how? He decided to start here, at the bath tub where most of the water comes out.
Through painstaking experimentation he found that while putting a plastic bottle into the bath water, its level would rise. He later found that this was called “displacement” and that someone named Archimedes had beaten him to the principle by about 2,000 years. ARuFa was a little bummed about that, but remained optimistic.
He reasoned that if one plastic bottle would make the water level rise a little bit, then putting more bottles would make it rise further. Therefore the more bottles he used the less water would come out of the faucet.
He immediately went online and ordered some plastic bottles.
A few days later a package arrived.
It took up a lot of floor space and cost about 7,500 yen (US$74) with shipping. Both of the facts kind of irritated ARuFa, but he quickly forgot about all that. He was on the verge of something great and he could feel it.
He opened the box to reveal several plastic gaping mouths pointing upwards as if singing to the heavens about ARuFa’s genius. He could almost hear the angelic choir ring back “ARuuuFaaaa’s goooonnnaa save a buuuutttloooaad of moOOooney…”
“Yes I am,” he thought to himself, but first it was time to work. He would have to fill all of these bottles up with water and then line the bathtub with them for the ultimate in water conservation.
Bottle after bottle he filled and lined.
Filled and lined…
The repetitive toil was beginning to take its toll on ARuFa who could feel an ulcer developing.
Four hours later, he was finished.
ARuFa: “I shouldn’t have taken that nap for three hours and forty minutes.”
The bottles were complete. However, you can’t call it a legitimate bath without any hot water. ARuFa placed a single drop of piping hot H2O from the tap.
In his area, water from the faucet costs 0.0002 yen (US$0.000002) per cubic centimeter. AruFa calculated one drop of his syringe to be 0.038cc, so 0.0002 times 0.038…
ARuFa: “In other words, if I begin to use all of these bottles to take my bath the water cost will be reduced to 0.0000076 yen ($0.000000075). It’s so awesome I think I’m going to puke!”
Now it was time to test this new bath out. ARuFa stepped into the tub. Surprisingly his body floated on top.
His body slowly settled into the plastic bath amid the crinkling sounds of tokkktoookkokok. However, it began to conform to his back like an old tractor tire might. He suspected that this would improve his circulation and stiff shoulder.
As an added bonus he imagined a plastic bottle bath could revolutionize the bath house industry. The way it is now, with people sunk into their tubs, everyone is isolated. But if everyone sat atop their baths the experience could be come much more sociable.
Having completed his first bath, ARuFa’s complexion was two shades paler and he couldn’t lift his left arm over his head anymore, but he felt refreshed.
Then inspiration struck.
ARuFa: “I could make an open-air bath with this!”
And so he packed up most of the water filled bottles into the box and carried it with his one remaining good arm to the nearest park.
He thought the serene atmosphere of this park would be perfect for his new bath.
ARuFa: “It’s perfect. Perfect and beautiful. Monkeys will come. It’s so authentic monkeys will come to this. Ah ah aaaaaaahhhhhh.”
He wasted no time climbing inside his new open-air bath. With the late winter sun shining overhead and the pleasant ambiance of children playing it was like paradise. He could instantly feel the pain in his right arm from carrying three dozen 2L bottles of water fade away. Indeed, both of his arms felt completely numb.
In the distance he could hear a young boy shout “Hey, it’s a bath!” Immediately after he could hear an adult say “Never look at that man. Promise your papa now.” That saddened ARuFa a little but he was in too much bliss to care much.
Even the bottles of water that were gradually cooling in the late winter wind couldn’t chill his indomitable spirit. He could do this a million times and still only have to pay 7 yen ($0.07). There was nothing left for ARuFA to do but look at the camera a laugh.
ARuFA: “Screw you water company! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Actually there were a few more things he wanted to do.
Yes, it looks like ARuFa has changed Japanese bathing culture for the better and saved millions of people millions of yen in the process. Surely, generations to come will build statues in this man’s honor.
ARuFa: “I’m king of the world!”
Source: Omocoro (Japanese)