Amy has to take a futon to class, so she can have a nap. She is making friends at kindy. Lena is in a class with six boys, and herself, so we say she has a lot of boyfriends!
And the drain guys.
Drain guys work for companies that clean the drains leading from your house to the street. These drains are just underground and can be accessed through little 'man' holes (don't know any men who could fit down them, but what else do you call them? Drain covers, I suppose).
Anyway, these drain guys come and knock on your door, explain what they do, and offer to give your drains a free check. Then you go out with them and they open the drain, and whatever state it is in, they gasp in horror and declare your drain to be dangerously blocked and in need of being immediately cleaned (for lots and lots of money, of course).
Many of these guys are quite young, and not all of them are very good actors. In fact it's quite comical to watch them feign shock and stunned disbelief at the sight of your drain, when it's the hundredth normal-looking drain they've seen that day. And even though I am standing right there, looking in the drain and thinking, 'It doesn't look so bad to me' and 'If it gets blocked I'll pay for it then, it'll be a lot less than paying you guys every year for preventive care'. So I always tell them No Thanks.
I was NOT in the mood for these guys, partly because they disturbed me in the toilet. I didn't flush when I heard the doorbell, that would be too embarrassing. Now, my problem with these people always is, I am never quite sure if they are not real official people from the city office, who might be conducting a REAL drain check or something, so I always give them the time of day. Seems to me that if they were real official people, they would be quite happy to check the drains then move on, so telling them to go ahead and check the drains if they liked seemed like a good thing to do. They moved off to the side of the house, and I went back inside, to the toilet for some necessary freshening up, where I realized I could not exactly flush with all standing out there looking into the drain! Gross! So now I was getting even more impatient with them.
They came back to the door when they realized I had not followed them to view their stupid fake play acting, and told me to come see. 'No, that's alright, I don't need to see'. I said. This kind of dumbfounded them - I told them to go check the drains, but I didn't come too. So what were they supposed to do? I don't think they had any idea. Eventually they left. Hopefully they never come back, but I know they will, next year, with a whole new bunch of amateur actors who have no memory of the crazy gaijin who didn't want to look in her drains. (cos all she really wanted to do was flush the goddam toilet!)
No comments:
Post a Comment