Never Drink The Water

Well, I found that time was almost standing still throughout my pregnancy.  It was a time that I missed my family terribly, because of the unknown.

I busied myself with housework, writing constant streams of letters home, my weekly visit to Kawashima-sensei, learning to cook Japanese (which I still do to this day), poor Tom ate all my "experiments" with immense fortitude.  He knew I was trying and never complained.

Our house was a comfortable one, when Tom and his mother bought it they had been very considerate of me.  The livingroom, kitchen, upstairs bathroom were all western style...the dinning room,and two bedrooms were tatami style.  Downstairs there was a small bath room called an O-furo, all tiled with a nice size cedar round tub that one bathed in.  You washed outside the tub on the tile, rinsed off and got into the tub.

Toilets are never in the bath room..totally separate. We also had, in the kitchen, water coming in from the city and also a tap for well water...right next to each other.  Well, I really screwed up rather badly and somehow wound up drinking from the wrong tap.

I have never been that sick in my life.  I actually gave myself dysentry, which is like "Revenge of Montazuma" meets "Godzilla" in your stomach!  I found that I could barely walk, poor Tom had to half carry me to the car so that we could get to a doctor fast.  It's a good thing he did, I had lost almost five pounds of fluid in just a few hours...and was becoming very dehydrated.

One thing - I HATE needles...I try everything to avoid them - but I was half unconscious and could not protest too much when they hooked me up to restore fluids quickly.  I felt much better after that.  The doctor gave me antibiotics and they cured me completely.  He also assured me that the baby was fine and I should not worry. Whew!

I was so exhausted that when we arrived home I went straight to sleep.  Now comes the funny part..when I got up the next morning I went into the kitchen as usual to get a cup of coffee....and I couldn't believe my eyes!  Tom, in a apparent attempt to save me from myself, had used my hot pink nailpolish to completely cover the faucet for the well water.  He was going to make damm sure that his "crazy gaijin" wife did not kill herself again.

This little episode just added fuel to the neighbors tales about us and our "kitchigai" or crazy ways.

The nailpolish stayed on the faucet and I always wondered how Oka-san explained it when she rented the house after we returned to the States.

The picture in my mind of Tom handpainting the faucet with a tiny, tiny nail polish brush is just too funny....I just have to laugh.