HOW I MET MY MOTHER
April 24th 2009 03:40
Natalie and I felt like little orphans sitting on the other side of a display window, waiting for our host parents to come and choose us.
“Seriously, Dean,” she kept going, “if my host family is shit, I’m walking to your house no matter what. You know I can’t speak Japanese that well. ” She looked at our documents. “And this says my host family can’t speak any English whatsoever. I mean, what if I like, get raped?”
I ignored her. Eventually a short, worried looking woman came and stopped herself in front of us. She was wearing a green jacket with prints of gigantic Chinese-style flames on each of her arms. Arms akimbo and still looking worried, she started this five minute monologue that neither Natalie nor I could understand; we just nodded. Eventually this woman’s worried exterior receded and let out a relaxed, friendly smile. We followed her to her car. She kept trying to talk to us during the drive to wherever the hell we were going; all Natalie and I could do was look at each other in confusion, then look back at the mother and nod. I pulled out my Japanese-English dictionary; the crazy woman tapped it and laughed like a maniac. We arrived at her home. She pointed to a room that had an altar and a photo of an elderly man on top of it, muttered something and then told Natalie to place her luggage in it. My luggage was still in the car, and from the few words I could understand from this woman, my real host mother was late and that she’d be picking me up from there.
We walked upstairs to what was probably the family room. The strange lady’s son was there, just sitting there. He was this big, fifteen year old kid, probably the biggest fifteen year old I’ve ever seen in my entire life. He was nearly twice my height. He didn’t say anything so I went and asked him,
“Hey, listen, do you like anime?”
He looked at me for a second before turning back around to face nothing. I glanced at Natalie, who shrugged. The woman stepped out of the kitchen and, smiling, gave us tea as well as mochi. Natalie nudged me. She didn’t like food like mochi so I had to eat her portion, too. But I didn’t mind. After some time of just nodding to the woman and eating the damn mochi and having an urge to find alcohol and cigarettes and drink and smoke and drink and smoke, another woman came upstairs to join us. She was a largish woman with long curly hair and glasses and big lips. She spoke to the crazy woman and they joked around. The crazy woman pointed at me and the bigger woman’s eyes followed. She looked at me, and, smile fading, nodded for a second, then continued her conversation. The bigger woman then indicated for me to follow her. The crazy woman smiled at me and said, “Goodbye.”
“What? Why? Why goodbye?”
But no one understood, so they made me take my luggage from the crazy woman’s car and then transfer it to the bigger woman’s car. The bigger woman, unsmiling and slightly irritated, muttered that for the next month, she’ll be my mother and that I should call her mama. I sighed.
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Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
And the past few entries were just about one day! I wish I could describe the entirety of the trip with one entry, but so much happened I had to spread it all out.