Last week, I spilled an entire cup of hot coffee in my American neighbor's car. Bryan. Yes, the chair one. Yes, the fist one. My lap. His seat. In Japan, this is the kind of moment a man is still apologizing for at seventy. Bryan did not even look over. His right hand went into the door pocket and came out with napkins. His left hand went into the glove box. More napkins. Then the cup holder. Then under the seat. Then the sun visor. A soft white snowfall landed in my lap. Forty-one napkins. From nine different restaurants. He was still driving. He never once took his eyes off the road. He knew where every napkin was. He had never counted them. He did not need to. "Where did these come from?" "Drive-thrus. They always give you too many." "So you keep them." "Everybody keeps them." Everybody. I opened the center console the way you open a box in a temple that has not been opened since the Edo period. Thirty-one packets of hot sauce. Fourteen ketchups. Soy sauce from a Chinese place that closed in 2019. One spork. And one wet wipe, still sealed. "That's for real emergencies," Bryan said. "What is a real emergency?" "You'll know." In Japan, every home keeps an earthquake kit. Water for three days. A flashlight. A whistle. Bryan's car has napkins for three years. And that is when I understood. This is not clutter. This is a nation's quiet reserve. Every drive-thru in America hands out too many napkins. And every American, without being told, without a meeting, saves the extra. Not for his own spills. He never spills. He saves them for the passenger he hasn't met yet. A man does not keep napkins for his own mess. He keeps them for yours. "You want me to clean all this out?" Bryan asked. "Bryan," I said. "Never touch the shrine." He looked at me for a long time. Then he turned the radio back up. In Tokyo, the convenience store clerk hands you exactly one napkin, folded, with both hands. It is beautiful. It is also one napkin. I now ask for two. The second one goes in my wallet. I do not have a car. I am preparing anyway. Yesterday, on the train, the man next to me spilled his coffee down his tie. I reached into my wallet without looking, the way Bryan does, and handed him a napkin folded into fourths. He stared at me like I had performed a miracle. "Where did you get this?" "America," I said. It was from 7-Eleven. But 7-Eleven was born in Texas. I am counting it. I have nine more. Your spill is covered.