Retro Day

Given the number of 50s theme places in Okinawa, we had a retro theme day complete with a movie, food, and bowling.

We started it off with no other than Pajama Game, which we got from the library. It was a wacky musical and the story was completely insane, ofcourse. 

Here's the story in a nutshell-- the setting is a Pajama factory and the two main characters are "Joe", the male manager and "Babe", the female head of the union grievance committee. They meet because Joe assaults and batters one of the employees (yes, it's true) and the Babe has to investigate the case. Despite Joe's aggressive tendencies and the fact that they're on opposite sides of the struggle,  Joe and Babe start to secretly fall in love with each other. They discover their mutual feelings at the company summer picnic. 

When's the last time you had this much fun at a work event? 

Anyway, there's lots of words like "gee", "golly", and "impetuous", and double entendre for you know what... Things are going along great for Joe and Babe. Babe's dad shows Joe the treasured family heirloom, a petrified bat and there's lots of making out next to train tracks.

One day the union finds out that their request for a 71/2 cent raise has been denied by the big boss, so they decide to subvert authority by working in slow motion and matching large pajama tops with small pajama bottoms. Joe gets wind of their plans, so he threatens everyone and when Babe stands up to him, he fires her.

The rest of the movie is Joe and Babe feeling sorry for themselves and singing. Oh, and there's some stalking and knife-throwing too. In the end, Joe seduces the company secretary to gain access to top secret records and he finds out that the big boss has been pocketing the 71/2 cent raise for each employee , so he threatens to expose the dark secret. The big boss gives in to the raise, but denies their requests for retroactive pay, but Joe and Babe don't mind because it all worked out for them. And that's the happy ending!  

Watching fine 50s cinema sure generates a big appetite, so next it was time for lunch at A&W. 

In case you're wondering what the purple things is-- it's called Wrappy Beni, basically a scoop of purple sweet potato (beniimo) inside a purple tortilla with some cereal sprinkled on it. Strange, I know, and not at all from the 50s, but how can you resist?

Okay, I'll admit. It was totally weird, but I had to try it.

A few hours later, our 50s food theme continued with Shakey's Pizza, est. 1954 (you see, we actually researched). We planned to get a basic pepperoni pizza with a milkshake, only they had a buffet that night with some strange Japanese style pizzas including 1) seaweed pizza  2) caesar salad pizza with croutons 3) peach and brownie pizza and a side of curry! Again, weird, but when in Rome, ...

Finally, the night ended with the great American past time of knocking down pins at the bowling alley. Sean beat me three out of three games. Look at his smug smile.