The Deluxe Version!

Ok, the humour of this post might not be that obvious to those who are not following Japanese pop culture and the latest fads and celebrities. One of the latest "hot" new celebrities is the obese transvestite drag queen "Matsuko Deluxe" (for those of you with a soft spot for John Waters, (s)he does bring up some distant memories of Divine). Matsuko Deluxe is now starring in quite a number of TV commercials (everything from the horse races to hair treatment products) and seem to be quite the rage in the TV variety show circuit. Personally I find Matsuko Deluxe mildly entertaining, but harbor no strong feelings either way and most likely won't feel sad when (s)he disintegrates into media oblivion in a few months time.

In any case, this is just to give you a little background to the entertaining story that I recently heard from one of my colleagues I'm quite friendly with. My friend participated in the funeral of the father of another colleague (i.e. my colleague as well) and during the festivities they ran into another former lady colleague, Sachiko, who had left the company since quite a few years back and stayed off the radar since then. This image of Sachiko when she was in the company was that of a quite good looking slim lady in the late 30's, but to the shock of my colleague she had apparently filled out quite a lot in the few years that she's not been seen or heard of from the company people... As my colleague ran into her at the funeral, Sachiko beamed off a huge smile, made a twirl and a bow and said "Hi! What do you think of Sachiko-DELUXE?!". My colleague, lost for words, stuttered something about how nice it was to see her again and how well the newly found weight suited her and then ran off to more fun conversation at the funeral...

I'm not sure if I managed to capture any of the surreal amusement of this little encounter as I experienced it when it was told to me, but in conclusion, anything is better in DELUXE!