Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Today's Adventure: No, Postman. I will not ring you up.

Sometimes I know what I'm doing here and I feel at peace. Sometimes I feel like I belong somewhere, usually in my home with a warm beverage on a drizzly, windy day like today.

Today was going to be a doozy anyway. A dear friend just finished up her brief visit with our family, heading out this morning. Also, tonight is one of the nights my husband is required to stay at work, which means I alone take care of the baby but I also only have to cook for myself and her.


In an attempt to feel useful, I dressed Julia up and we ran to the post office to send off a bunch of sock monkey hats. On the way, my toddler battled for control of the umbrella and stood in the largest puddle she could find before splashing all the mud on me. It's the first day we've had rain and the time to walk in it, so I couldn't be mad. Also, she got a chance to use the green wellies a student brought her from London over a year ago.

Not using air mail, the postage was reasonable, in fact a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. Then we put some money in the ATM, which I had to try twice in Japanese, challenging myself not to use the English instructions instead.

Then we came home, which was made harder by her decision on bolt out the door to our building as I was trying to shake the water off our collapsed umbrella. Luckily Hana, my best friend here, was walking down the street right at that moment and helped me wrangle Julia into the lobby.

Julia and I came upstairs, and all was well, until there was a ring at the buzzer. A young man from the post office asked if I was Tsuzuki by name, to which I agreed. Then he went into a rapid-fire native-level paragraph as to why he had come.

And I gave up. I seriously only understood my name and he appeared to have possibly been the guy who was at the counter that we went through, but somehow he didn't get my language level through our previous exchange.

I am overloaded. And I have no more to say. To him. To anyone. We're done with this.

However, the young man persisted. He buzzed up again five minutes later, then waited and buzzed up with one of my neighbors, an older lady who I like but can't understand more than one sentence out of five from. Then he came up and rang the doorbell twice.

I have yet to answer. I feel bad about wasting the man's time, but I also refuse to listen to more stuff I have no hope of understanding from someone who doesn't get that "intermediate ability" and "complete fluency" are not the same thing. It is shameful that fewer than three sentences can send me into this, and it isn't his fault that I am not better at this language. Nevertheless, I just can't open that door.

Hopefully, if something is wrong with a package, he'll leave it in my box downstairs and I'll try again later. If it's a refund or some other thing, he can also leave it there. I have no interest in continuing a conversation in which all I can recognize is my name and all I can say is "yes...."

Saying yes even when you don't understand is very normal in Japanese, but also very dangerous.

Now I am going to stay in here, absorbed by cowardice, and try to take care of my screaming toddler.

Perhaps with a hot beverage.