Hideaway

I'm 30 seconds into a nap to which I personally feel quite entitled. 5 classes in a row yesterday followed by shamisen practice has put the proverbial fork in this week. I'm just looking to curl up on some tatami with a pillow, and sleep until dinner. But lately there has been an ongoing rash of random people showing up at my house, not in any sort of coordinated way, just in a general karmic increase sort of way, and today will be no exception. I shamble over to where my front door is, swearing that if it's those Jehovah's witnesses again I'm going to invest in a better cover story than "sorry, I'm American." It actually worked surprisingly well, don't ask me why. I think they just read into it what they wanted. Knowing nods and "Oh of course, sorry to bother you."

So I open the door, preparing a volley of heretical barbs which would wither the pope himself, if only he could understand Japanese, but am instead delighted to find that the much awaited day where my students a) figure out where I live and b) muster the courage to come bother me, has arrived!

Three of the 3rd grade girls from the big elementary school who were at the kids' sumo tournament up the street have apparently taken it upon themselves to come, ring my doorbell, then engage in an intense whispered argument about which of them will talk to me. You'd think they'd have this figured out beforehand, but hey, maybe they had a brief moment of intense daring and could not stay their hand from the buzzer. I'm willing to give them that. Besides, they're setting a new standard for oh-my-gosh cuteness by nervously hopping around from foot-to-foot, trying desperately to get each other to say something, so I don't particularly mind. I am fairly certain a good 15 minutes of more-or-less silence passed while they tried to figure out just what the hell part 2 of their daring one-part-plan would be. I felt no particular need to speak, or give them a hand, as honestly I was preoccupied trying to keep the laughter from exploding, inflicting severe psychological trauma on the three of them.

Eventually some sort of consensus is reached and one of them stops fidgeting...relatively speaking:

"Are you coming to our school again?"

Awww.

Of course I am.

"Good. Bye bye!"

And they run like hell for the street.