My gym in Tokyo has a suggestion box by the front desk. For eleven years, it got about one slip a month. Usually "The shower is cold." In 2024, an American named Mason joined. He's 33, from Tucson, Arizona. He works in software, and he says good morning to every person in the building like he's hosting a morning show. Now the box gets about thirty slips a month. The manager let me read some. "Please make a rule about grunting. I am not against it. I just want to know if I am allowed." "The American put my weights back. I did not ask him. Is this a service? Do I pay?" "On my last rep he said 'You got this.' I did have it. How did he know?" "What is Leg Day? Everyone is saying Leg Day. Please put it on the calendar." (It's on the calendar now. Wednesdays.) "He fist-bumped the cleaning lady. Now she fist-bumps me. Something has changed in this building." "Please play music with more feelings." "Who is Mason? I only come on Sundays and everybody is talking about him." Last month, the manager found one slip folded very small, in a high school student's handwriting. "I'm 16. Kids at school call me weak. My mother signed me up here so I would stop crying in my room. On my first day, I could bench press 20 kilos. That's the bar with nothing on it. Mason was on the next bench. He looked over and said, 'Strong.' It was not strong. He said it anyway. Every Tuesday and Friday, for a year. Now it's 60 kilos. Kids at school still say things. I don't believe them anymore. Not because I'm strong. Because every week somebody said I was, until I believed him instead of them. Request: please don't let him go back to Arizona." Mason's company is moving him back to Tucson in April. The manager answered on the board by the front desk, the way he answers every suggestion: "We are unable to approve this request. We tried." Arizona, you're getting him back in the spring. Tell him he's got this.