I walked into a Japanese pharmacy at 2pm feeling like it was 3am and my body was filing a formal complaint.
The pharmacist was a small serious man who gave off the immediate energy of someone who had never misdiagnosed anything in his life.
Me: I need something for jet lag.
He nodded, Pulled out a chart.
An actual laminated chart, with a tiny human diagram on it.
He placed it on the counter and slid it toward me with both hands like he was presenting evidence.
Pharmacist: Where do you feel tired?
I looked at the tiny human diagram, looked at him, looked back at the diagram.
Then I pointed at the whole thing.
Every part.
Head to toe, full coverage.
He studied my pointing very seriously, like I had given him meaningful clinical data.
Nodded slowly.
Then he asked me what time my body thought it was.
Me: Somewhere between 3am and a personal crisis.
He wrote something down, i don't know what he wrote.
But he wrote it with conviction.
Then he looked up.
Pharmacist: I understand.
Pause.
Pharmacist: Your inside clock is protesting.
I stared at him.
Me: ...yes.
Pharmacist: The body does not like to be confused about time.
Me: Neither do I honestly.
Pharmacist: You and your body are having a disagreement.
Me: We are.
Pharmacist: About what time it is.
Me: Correct.
He nodded again like we had reached a diagnosis together as a team.
Then turned around and started pulling things off the shelf with the focused energy of a man who had treated many confused foreign bodies before mine and would treat many after.
He came back with three items.
Placed them on the counter one by one.
Explained each one in careful English.
This one is for the protest.
This one is for the sleep.
This one is for the mood.
Me: The mood?
Pharmacist: Jet lag makes people sad sometimes.
Me: "That's just life.
He considered that for a moment.
Then added a fourth item.
Me: What's that one.
Pharmacist: Also for the mood.
I paid without asking further questions.
Took all four things.
Followed every instruction.
Slept for nine hours that night.
Woke up feeling like a functioning human being for the first time in four days.
I don't know what was in those four items.
I don't know what he wrote on that chart.
But somewhere in Tokyo there's a pharmacist who took one look at a destroyed foreigner pointing at a tiny human diagram...
diagnosed him with an inside clock protest...
and fixed him completely.
Japanese healthcare understood me better than I understand myself.
What's the most accidentally accurate thing someone has ever said to describe exactly how you were feeling?