Odd

“It keeps holding me all the way through the night. I think this is great because it does not betray me.”
Junko Suzuki, who is estranged from her husband, praising the Boyfriend’s Arm Pillow, which consists of a headless torso and a stuffed arm that curls around the sleeper.

And here is a picture of such a non-betraying Boyfriend’s Arm Pillow.

I thought for a while about attempting a witty comment. But looking at the picture again, does it really need one?

An assistant nurse was arrested over the weekend for her mistreatment (to put it mildly) of some of elderly patients. The incident occurred in Kyoto’s Jujo Hospital, and is of such an unsavoury nature that it made me wince both reading and writing about it. So I should say that before you go any further, what you are about to read is not pleasant. Not in the slightest.

Akemi Sato, the 30-year-old assistant in question, was arrested for removing finger and toe nails from 5 patients. The victim who suffered the worst treatment was a 76-year-old female convalescent. She had 3 finger nails peeled off by the sadistic Sato. Not only that, but the pensioner was fully conscious when it happened, yet was unable to resist due to her age and physical limitations. The unfortunate woman’s condition after Sato’s attack is said to be particularly serious, and her fingers are expected to take at least 3 weeks to heal.

Needless to say the hospital was apologetic, although it was quick to try and divert the blame. The secretary-general was quoted as saying, “It’s indeed regrettable that such an incident occurred at the hospital even though she is a staffer dispatched by a temp office to work for us.”

A man was arrested in Kobe earlier this week after being caught stealing 2 pairs of trousers from a railway office. However 39-year-old Kenji Hishida wasn’t exactly what you’d call desperately in need of any leg wear, especially not of the railway uniform variety.

Mr. Hishida it turns out is obsessed with trains and planes, and an integral part of his hobby it would seem is stealing uniforms. After his arrest, the trouser thief admitted to stealing clothing from railway and airline companies over a 15-year period. Claiming that by wearing the stolen uniforms he could enter railway facilities, where he was “able to get a close look at trains from close range.”

Perhaps not surprisingly Hishida-san is unemployed, as after what the police found at his home it is obvious that he had no time for something so distracting as work. In his (presumably quite large) apartment, a staggering 10,000 uniforms were recovered. Prompting one surprised officer to claim that it was a haul “even a 2 ton truck could not carry.”

A disgruntled looking Hishida-san on his way to court yesterday. Perhaps.

Keisuke Yumiba, a man who chose to live out of his car for the last 12 months, was arrested over the weekend. Whilst using his car as a home isn’t crime, it could be construed as suspicious when for the same period of time his brother’s rotting corpse had been left in the apartment they used to share.

Local residents in the housing estate in Kanagawa Prefecture had complained of a vile smell, and the resultant investigation uncovered 29-year-old Kenichi Yumiba’s corpse.

The body showed no sign of external injury, but the police have yet to disclose if the autopsy revealed the cause of the elder brother’s death.

Most unpleasant.