Convenient Stores

Imagine convenient stores being separate from gas stations.  How often would you go in?

I'd say just about never, unless you lived next door to one.  Maybe that is why there are so many in Japan.  If there is always nearby you are prone to go.

Japanese convenient stores have one huge plus.  I really hope American convenient stores and utilities get organized and do this to.  Here, you can pay all of your utility bills at any convenient store.  Only our cell-phones require another method of payment.  It really is nice to pay bills in cash.  When all the bills come, I just grab my cash, walk to Sankus (the Japanese approximation of "thanks") and pay my bills.  The cashier scans the bar codes.  I hand him the money.  He stamps each bill, tears the receipt stub off of each one, and away I go.

It is strange getting gas and not being able to run in and grab some honey roasted peanuts and a fountain drink, neither of which are worth making a stop for, especially when they don't have fountain drinks.  The convenient store prices for bottled drinks are about 50 cents higher than from vending machines, which are often just outside.  Vending machines are so ubiquitous I'm not sure why you would by a drink in a convenient store.

On my daily fifteen minute walk to school I pass 8 vending machines that I can think of off the top of my head.  No, make that ten.  There everywhere and in random places.  Driving through the countryside, there might be vending machines where two county roads intersect.  Walking through backstreets, there might be vending machines at the end of a dead-end alley.

Now if I could only pay my bills at the vending machine behind my apartment, I'd be set.