Welcome... TO FUTON WARS!

Anyone else seen phoenix nights??? No? Righto.

So there is a bastard big family argument going on at the moment, and I was relieved for about 2 seconds because I thought I wasn't actually involved, but noooo, of course I was!

Yesterday I went to MIL's house, (she is still in Thailand, so it's Obaachan, BIl and SIL) where Ryota and Ash were while I was getting some housey shite done, and as I walked in the door, all I heard was Ryo-chan's angry voice growling "Kaero!" (We're going!) and then shoving me back out the door. BIL and SIL were silent and Obaachan was chuntering something in the background so I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

2 cigarettes later Ryota finally told me what happened, but men are quite unreliable when it comes to relaying arguments, they either a) forget important details, b) twist the story so it's not their fault at all, or c) can't be arsed telling you the whole or even half of the story so grunt instead when questioned. I think Ryo-chan managed to combine all 3 of those when he was telling me what happened...

OK I'll back up a bit, I went to the park with SIL on Saturday (great pictures, will post soon!) and when we came back there was a massive futon set dumped in our genkan. My first reaction was, 'fuck me, not another cunting futon, where am I going to put this bastard?!' And then Obaachan came over and informed me that this was for Ashton to sleep on.
I gave in on the futon vs cot debate so Ash now sleeps on the floor NEXT TO his perfectly good, safe, expensive cot. Although I must admit, I do like just rolling over half asleep to pat him back to sleep or whip out some tit without standing up.
So Ash sleeps on a normal mattress with a baby sized futon on top, which he often rolls off but he also rolls off the adult sized mattress, so unless they start making futons as big as our whole entire room, he's gunna roll off the fucker.

I think Obaachan may have still been pissed that I was dissing the whole futon gig and this new futon was an attempt to stop the rolling off issue that I like to bitch about. I got what she said when she said "This is for Ash to sleep on" but I didn't really get the meaning, like we didn't really need the thing. When Ryota got home Saturday and tripped over the futon on the way in I said, "Oh yeh, Obaachan brought it over, I think it's for Ash but I have no idea..."
Ryota then went and asked Obaachan and she said "I fucking told your stupid gaijin wife already!" (well not really, but along those lines in more grandma-like speak).

Ash is pretty sick with a cold so on Saturday night we were busy and both couldn't be arsed taking the fated futon upstairs but when Obaachan came in on Sunday and saw it she gave a little miffed mumbling rant on the fact that we hadn't used the futon. I explained that we were just tired the night before and we'd give it a crack from tonight.
When Ryota went over there apparently (and this is where the details are based purely on Ryota's sketchy account of things!) they got into the conversation again and Ryota said that I couldn't understand Obaachan's Japanese! Which is true a lot of the time, hell I have trouble understanding old people in English, add in the Japanese factor, a sprinkling of Tottori-ben, lots of gutter Osaka-ben and sometimes I just guess a response. I did actually understand the futon conversation, I just didn't get why he needed it... Ya get me...?

Obaachan got pissed then and was all like 'well has she understood anything I've said in the last 2 years!?' and Ryota went into a 'if she speaks to you in English will you understand!?' and it went on from there....
I live in Japan, nobody should have to speak English to me, but I was touched that Ryo-chan would jump to my defence. He also told Obaachan she couldn't just dump things in our house, she should ask first, and that I definitely agree with.

Anyway, Ryota told me he wasn't going to go to the in-laws house ever again , which is a joke because as soon as Ash starts crying when he's looking after him he'll soooo be over there! He told me not to go either but I told him to shove it, it's his beef not mine. Kinda regretted that though when I went over last night and got into a tiff myself with Obaachan over Ashton taking a bath. He had quite a high fever and was all snotty, apparently in Japan a bath is a no-no when there's a fever involved, which I think is bollocks, the fever is taken wayyyy too seriously here in my opinion. Whenever I'd had too much to drink and called in a sickie to work, all I had to do was say I had a fever and any boss/ co-worker would be worried about me, but when I was in Australia I don't think we even had a thermometer in our house!
I knew Ash would feel better after a warm bath so I could get all the snot and muck off his face but Obaachan was all "Fine, ask the doctor when you go tomorrow, he'll tell you!!"
I basically told her straight then that in Australia, it's fine to take a bath, and he was having one.

Ryota still hasn't talked to her but I'm sure he will soon enough. OK, my snot monster just woke up so must go tend to the poor little bugger!

R-E-S-T-E-C-P

I have a new found respect for Grandma-in-law.

I've never had a problem with her, although sometimes a bit pushy, she's never done anything that's really pissed me off, and you've gotta love an 83 year old Japanese lady who goes bananas for KFC. Funny too, because she's the most old school 'Japanese' out of all my in-laws, and I'm finding that we are similar in many ways. Actually, just one way: everyone around us treats us both like complete idiots with the mental capacity of 2 year olds.

Example, whenever anyone loses something at the in-laws' house, it's blamed on Grandma. Every time. No matter what it is.The other day, MIL lost an envelope containing some important secret city office business, now I had seen her shove the envelope in her bag and tried to put this point across when she was frantically searching for it all over the house, but my small gaijin cries of "Hey, it's in the bag" were inevitably lost in the panic.She instantly went on a Grandma blaming rant and literally said "Obaachan is going senile, she always tries to clean up and forgets where she puts things!" I was slightly horrified at this, considering MIL is 50, has lived with her parents all her life and still doesn't wash any of her own clothes or vacuum.

Grandma, not one to sit down and take shit, started ranting right back at her, saying if she wasn't so fucking messy she wouldn't lose things. At this point SIL and BIL were all behind MIL, backing her up exclaiming, "Yeh, you always put my shit away!" It became clear to Grandma that I was the only one who was even slightly on her side, so she settled for ranting at the gaijin not sure if i was understanding, but added lots of "な" at the end to show she was ranting with me not at me. I did lots of nodding and silent pointing towards the bag but nobody really got that I knew where the envelope was.SIL then joined in the fun by saying she couldn't find her glasses and that Obaachan must have cleaned them and lost them. 5 minutes of chaos later MIL had found the envelope (in the bag I'd been pointing at) and SIL found her glasses (in her own handbag) and while everyone scattered, mumbling that Obaachan usually does put things in the wrong place, I was left with Obaachan while she continued her 'Nobody listens to me anymore' tirade.

Nobody accuses me of being senile, (yet) well, most of the time anyway, but I do get clumped in the same 'don't trust her she'll fuck it up' category that Grandma does because of my apparent complete lack of understanding of anything going on.One example when it came to me was my tax, now I'm a long-termer in Japan and have married a local, unfortunately I actually have to start paying my tax slightly on time. MIL kindly went to the city office for me to sort out how much I owed which was great but what she didn't tell me is that she got them to divide it up into 2000 yen installments which means I'll have to pay interest on it for about 50 fucking years which I didn't want to do.She just didn't feel the need to ask me which way was better to pay it because she thought I mightn't have understood but fuck woman, give the foreign girl a chance! I then went to the city office by myself (well with offspring) and paid it in full like I planned to before.

The biggest defiancy point scorer recently has definitely been Obaachan though, she's such a rebel. Despite all instructions, wait for it... she's been going out of the house! To the supermarket!! ON HER BICYCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shock horror!All the in-laws just called her stupid and said not to call them when she falls off her bike.So Obaachan came over to our house especially, asked where I was then relayed the story of how she went on her bike and got the shopping because she was going crazy staying in the house everyday. She told me with a huge grin on her face because she knew I'd understand and be the only one to understand for that matter. It made me smile because she was so proud of herself in her little going out outfit and sunhat, bless her little cotton socks.

I hope I'm as feisty as her and still tucking into a 3 piece chicken pack when I'm 83, you go girl!