The Case of the Empty Toothpaste Tube
Sanzo ikkou were gathered in Sanzo's and Hakkai's room, where Goku had laid himself on one of the beds and fallen asleep. Sanzo was reading a newspaper and Gojyo was yawning out of boredom. He did not budge when Sanzo told him to be off and "take your roommate with you!"
"It's too early to go to sleep," Gojyo replied, but yawned again.
Meanwhile, Hakkai recalled something unusual that had happened earlier that day. He decided to speak to Sanzo about it. "Sanzo, as we shopped earlier, you went out so hurriedly as the cashier spoke to us. Why was that?"
The shop had been quite crowded, and in his effort to leave the room as soon as possible, Sanzo had knocked about five persons on his way out. Sanzo bringing others to accidents wasn't anything new for Hakkai, though; but the strange look Sanzo had worn, well, that's just about the limit.
"Oh, that," Sanzo said calmly, and much to Hakkai's astonishment, he had the strange look again!
Both Gojyo and Hakkai looked at Sanzo closely. The priest tried to put an intellectual frown but completely failed and had to smile. SMILE! Gojyo and Hakkai stared.
Without any other word Sanzo got up and disappeared behind the door.
"This is really fishy. What is he up to? Must be some dirty trick to attack us, or he wouldn't be grinning from ear to ear. Is he blasting my room?" Gojyo got up to head for the door but Hakkai held his hand.
"He's just happy, probably," Hakkai said, even if he was scratching his head in wonder.
"Hakkai, Sanzo doesn't get happy. Or did he fall in love with the cashier, do you think so?" Gojyo's nimble mind jumped from one idea to another. "She isn't that pretty. Is she? Do you think she's that pretty?"
"Well… human tends to be happy from time to time… so maybe it's high time Sanzo's happy… I think Sanzo's coming back," Hakkai said.
The next second Sanzo could be seen reappearing, with a rather pink face. Gojyo could hardly contain himself as he shouted, "Did you see the cashier? Did you fall in love with her?"
"Don't be an ass," Sanzo replied as he took his former seat, now with a more composed manner.
"Are you telling us, Sanzo?" Hakkai asked smilingly. "I can't help being curious."
Probably it's better… Otherwise they might think I'm getting out of my mind. Well, well, insanity is contagious, but for now I think I'm still fighting it well.
"All right," Sanzo finally agreed. He remained silent for another minute, though, and when he finally opened his mouth, it was for laughing. Yes, Sanzo Houshi-sama was laughing so hard that his shoulders shook and he had to hold his aching side.
"WHAT IS IT?" Gojyo yelled, also laughing, infected by Sanzo's laughter.
"What is is, Sanzo?" Hakkai asked, smiling widely, for he had never seen Sanzo like this.
"Shut up," Sanzo said, but without the usual visual effect, since he was busy wiping his eyes. He drew a deep breath and finally started, "It's like this…
It happened not long after Goku came to live in the temple with me. He had to attend some sort of school in a village nearby and someday he told me he needed something for the handcraft lesson. He couldn't name it and tried rather desperatelly to describe it.
"It's that thing, you know, where you have the thing to clean your mouth, no, I mean, your teeth… What's it called, Sanzo, the thing to clean the teeth?"
"Toothpaste."
"Right! I need that thing that… has the thing… that has the toothpaste in it, but not a new one. A used one, empty. You don't have to give me a new one, the teacher said."
"When?"
"For the handcraft lesson tomorrow."
I had listened to him, but somehow I didn't manage to remember it until the next day when he was already at school. I looked all around the temple for an empty toothpaste tube, found one, luckily, and then brought it to his school.
The guard of the school was an innocent looking villager, big, burly, but very innocent he seemed. He did not let me inside for "izz agains' de rules, Sanzo-sama, if ya know wat I mean." I asked him then to take the tube to Goku and gave him the thing.
(Here Sanzo began to have problems with keeping his laughter under control.)
The guard looked at the empty tube in his hand with all confusion, looked back at me, and looked back at the tube, all the time saying nothing. I did not say anything either and left the school without any other thought.
(Gojyo grinned and Hakkai chuckled, commenting, "He must have never had anyone leave an empty toothpaste tube in his hands, leave alone his Highness Sanzo-sama himself!"
Goku was woken up by the sounds of laughter and asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes, "What's this about?"
"It's about the toothpaste," Sanzo said, hardly able to get hold of himself.
"Oh! Tell on!" Goku said excitedly.)
Later that day, Goku rushed into my room, shouting so loudly, "Sanzo! Sanzo!" that I thought someone had trashed him black and blue.
"What?"
Frantically he waved the tube that had travelled so far that day in front of my nose, demanding," Whatever did you give me this thing for?"
"You asked for it yesterday," I replied, quite sure someone had trashed him until he had lost his short memory.
"Not this thing! Not this one, Sanzo! The thing that has the thing, aargh, what's this thing called?"
"Toothpaste tube."
"The thing that has toothpaste tube in it! The… the… the box! That's of paper, brown, thick paper!"
I must have stared at him for about some minutes before managing to change my presuppositions.
So he needed the box and I gave the guard an empty toothpaste tube. The image of the dumbstruck guard came back before me and I couldn't stop laughing that time, and until now… the cashier today had been holding a toothpaste with the same expression the guard had… probably his daughter or something…"
Sanzo started to laugh again, this time with Goku, Hakkai and Gojyo joining in.
"I did not stop to think, whatever can one start with an empty toothpaste tube?" Sanzo said, weak from laughter.
"Well, well, sometimes Sanzo Houshi-sama makes mistakes too, it seems," Gojyo said teasingly.
Sanzo smiled, wiping his eyes. "That's the funny thing."