Fear the futon

Every now and then I hear extremely loud banging from outside, but it's pretty close. I always thought it was construction until one day I was out hanging up some laundry (because there are NO DRYERS, still a constant source of annoyance to me). Achem, anyways.

Another curiosity to me, the foreigner, is that everyone sleeps on futons. Ok, that's not really unexpected. But what you should know is that futons are really thin here. They're not the ultra-thick, 500 lb cotton stuffed glorified mattresses on wooden frames I'd come to expect from so-called 'futon shops' in the US. The average futon (pronounced "f'tone" for those in the know!) here is about 2 inches thick, and gets thinner with each use. They must be folded and put away every day for the advertised reason that ticks will start living under them if you don't.

I have a secret hunch that it's to make more work for bored japanese housewives. (Of which I am now a member, how weird.) There are a lot of things that I believe are for the sole purpose of creating more work for housewives... so many of them, in fact, that being a housewife becomes a full-time job.
Listen to what I gotta do just to dispose of one plastic bottle (like a plastic coke bottle).

a) rinse it out,
b) take labels and caps off of the plastic bottles
c) place bottle in PET bottle recycling bin,
d)place lid and label in PLASTIC recycling bin. Because, you know, the bottle itself is a different kind of plastic. I mean, COME ON PEOPLE!!

When you're having a drink in a plastic bottle on a subway station or something, it's fine to just toss the bottle, label and all into the 'bottle' bin. This confirms my theory that they CREATE busywork for people, and by people, I mean housewives. And by housewives, I mean me. Boo!!
I secretly think this is part of the reason that dryers never caught on here, they save too much time. ;p

I'm still waiting for my visa to come through, so I can't look for work yet (although I have a nice part time job as a programmer where I work at home for a guy in San Francisco, so I'm 99% sure it's legal. Just don't go running to the visa guys to tell on me quite yet please ^^) But as soon as I get a full time job, I'm gonna be more than happy to have Takeshi help me. Don't get me wrong, he does help. I do about 75% of the housework. But while he's at work, I mostly sit around and play Final Fantasy 10-2 and draw my comic all day, so I don't feel justified to complain. ... but once I get a job... watch out! ^^

Anyways, back to my story. I was out hanging up the laundry, when all the sudden this incredibly loud banging comes from my neighbor's patio. I mean, like WHAM!! WHAM!!! WHAM!!!. "Ah," I thought, "Ms Yamashita is having some repairs done on her patio". I peek over to see my gentle neighbor talking quietly to her three-year old son. "That's odd, where's the banging coming from?" Then suddenly, I see a large flat object shaped rather like a tennis racket in her hand. She stopped talking to her son for a second, then WHAM!!!! WHAMM!! WHAMM!!!! Gentle Ms Yamashita is giving a futon draped over her balcony the beating of its life!!

I suddenly see how, amidst all the annoyance of household work and the natural frustrations of raising two small children and living the life of an american '50s era woman are released. Heaven hath no fury like a woman beating the dust off a futon!!

I can also imagine, if that were my mom, I would be very careful.

*boy creeps up to a mom on the patio* "uh.. mom, I ... got in trouble at school today..."
mom: "Oh really? That's a shame." (suddenly turns around and beats the living shit out of the futon, and turns back around with a gentle smile.) "but you won't do it again, right?"
child, traumatized: "Yes! No! Of course not...Illbegood!! *dashes off at light speed*

And here I am, just doing judo...