Cat Scrubbin’

The first thing that comes to mind today is how one scrubs a cat.

 

It started off innocently enough. We were getting our art materials for the various courses that require them, and some of my friends are taking the ikebana (flower arrangement) class. Included with their starter pack is this piece of wood with a ton of nails on one side akin to a deadly brush, or flower arrangement base, whichever is cooler-sounding at the moment.

 

On Sunday, my okaasan introduced me to our neighbor across the street, a cute little obaasan. Before I go on, let me give a bit of a background for this story.

 

The obaasan owns a cat. At least, I think it's one. Every night, without fail, I go to sleep listening to the wails of a dying animal, most notably those of a cat. Putting two and two together doesn't require an Asian calculator. I'm guessing that it's a pretty old cat or something.

 

Back to the somewhat present. As I am being introduced to this obaasan, she's scrubbing her cat. Okay, so some people wash their pets in front of their house out in the open. The cat's lying on it side on a rag of some sort. As we talk, I see the obaasan scrubbing the cat as if it needed some polish. oO;

 

It wasn't *scrub scrub scrub.*

 

It was *Skshh skshh skshh.* I was thinking to myself, wtf.

 

At the time, it seemed pretty normal, until she held the cat by the front legs and flipped it over like a fish being de-scaled. The cat just flopped there before the obaasan resumes the skshh skshh skshh. This happened over and over. Flop over flop. Skshh over skssh. The only reason this story came up was because the ikebana base reminded me of a brush, and I wondered what would've happened if the obaasan just happened to be an avid ikebana practitioner, and mixed up brushes…

 

Oddly enough, I didn't hear any dying wails, but there should've been some. At the time, I took it nonchalantly as it went on, but in retrospect, it's just about the funniest thing I can think of that has happened to me so far.

 

Well, there has been a lot of funny things that happened to me, but I guess this qualifies as one not directly related to me.

 

Yay, I finally got a phone today!!! It took us over 2 hours to somehow finish, despite having all of our paperwork essentially done yesterday. -.-

 

As the lady called my okaasan for permission (>.>), I noticed how her voice jumped into the hyper pitch range. I've always known that in Japan, especially in the service industry, the faster and higher you talk, the more deference you are giving to the other person. I believe that the pitch range goes somewhere like this.

 

Deep à Husky à Casual à Puberty à Schoolgirl à Pikachu à Hyper Pitch à Dog whistle

 

I'm sure that there's some intermediate levels in between those, as well as varying degrees, but that's essentially what I've broke it down into. This is why I always fail half of Japanese listening tests. First they'd have the male guys talking, and it's all "oh, I got this."

 

Then the girl starts talking, and the recorder somehow manages to record her voice, play it back in slow capture, and still manage to explain how Hamtarou crossed the bridge to get some chestnuts for Ribon, kick Taishou in the nuts, and saved the world from Burandon chasing his tail.

 

I'm exaggerating. She'd probably just get to the part about Taishou and aizuchi (back-channeling conversation) the rest just to throw us off with a 'ne,' followed by a 'ne' from the guy, and 'sou desu ka' the rest of the time, and still somehow get her meaning across.

 

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I finally figured out how to use the infrared thingy to send my information to other people's phones with just the information I want, and how my name is spelled and all that jazz. It's a super cool function, and it beats the whole "I'll call you and just save my name" method.

 

It's getting late, and I have to study for a test tomorrow that would decide whether or not I am really worthy to be in the 400 level, which unfortunately requires that I know everything in 200-300. That's both books of Genki. Can I cram almost 2 years' worth of material into my head tonight?

 

Probably not. I'm just gonna play with my phone.