All survival stories are important, but not all survival stories are equal. Some stories are dangerous, and some are somewhat ridiculous. The latter was the case when a man from Japan found himself locked in a department store after he got too relaxed in a massage chair and fell asleep until the store closed — forcing him to turn to Twitter for help.
It seems that when the employees were closing down the store, they didn’t check whether it was actually empty. And who can really blame them? Sometimes the workday can be slow or draining, and you just can’t wait to pack things up and head home. But in some far corner, a man whose Twitter account is @_Asphodelus was, unbeknownst to them, deep asleep on a massage chair. He woke up to tweet, “Oh man, I’m locked in!” — much to everyone’s delight worldwide. The tweet went on to get over 39,000 retweets.
Twitter — nowadays just called X — can be bleak at times. Between Elon Musk calling the President of the United States a pedophile and the resident AI chatbot having occasional racist and antisemitic delusions, the app can be pretty dark. So we welcome low-stakes situations we can all chuckle about.
Japan lately has been the center of multiple ludicrous stories that seem to only happen on the highly esoteric island. Just recently, a city in Japan was pretty much colonized by its sizable population of bears overeating in preparation for hibernation. The situation got so dire that the government ended up deploying the actual army to help control the bear problem. So when it comes to Japan, the problems are specific and unique. But still, they always find a way to fix them.
In this particular situation, X didn’t end up helping the man. After walking around the store looking for a way out, he tripped an alarm. Soon, ten cops were at the department store to answer it. They set him free, and the man later told the internet that he received an apology from the manager for not checking whether someone was still inside.
In response to the ordeal, people started joking that it felt like an escape room game. According to The Independent, the man responded to everyone in his comments by simply saying it was a valuable experience. We’re not sure how exactly he plans to use this experience in other aspects of his life — perhaps don’t feel at home in all department stores, or maybe call the police instead of asking social media for help? Regardless, we’re just happy nobody got hurt or falsely accused.
When everything is considered, this is probably the best commercial the department store could ever hope for. When they say they have the best massage chairs on the market — believe them. If you choose to try one out, you might just end up forgetting where you are and any other plans you had after your trip to the store.
The man also ensured that he apologized to the store owner. Good manners, as we all know, are very important in Japanese culture.
