So my time here is coming to an end. We finished up the visa process last week and should have the visa coming sometime this week. The flight has already been booked for December 1st, can't wait!
My mother in law is still delirious and thinks we can live here for the rest of our lives. She is under the impression we are going to move back here ("here" being this tiny little town, not Japan in general) after a year or two. This is never going to happen and I said this before, but my wife was just like "just agree with her and go with it, we know it's not happening." I get the feeling this may lead to some problems down the road. I don't like "lying."
I have no idea what the hell my father in law thinks about this; he's too busy getting drunk and telling me how tasty everything is to notice what is going on, and he seems equally-delirious to everything but in another way. I was talking about how I am gonna sell some crap off (TV, PC monitor, that kind of thing), and he's just like "No, no...bring the TV with you! Why does my daughter need to sell her car? You can ship that over to America!" Then I had to explain to him for 10 minutes how TVs are different in different countries and that it's not only fucking expensive to ship A CAR overseas, but that the company doesn't make cars in America and never mind that, I don't even know if it's street-legal in the States.
I have been asked if they have rice and tea in America. RICE. AND. TEA. Jesus. These are questions from two university-educated people, by the way. Can this be topped?
My sister-in-law's reaction to this has been great. I need to give some background info on her out first. She is a psycho and needs to go talk to a psychologist and get some head pills or something. She has a history of violent outbursts and snapping at her family. I have seen her fight with my wife before and it is not pretty. She will come back to the in-laws' house (this is over an hour drive for her each way), demand money like a yakuza, and go as far as to hit her parents and/or throw shit on the floor until she gets it. Then she leaves immediately.
I have seen this once although nothing physical happened. She blew all her money on clothes or whatever, then called late one night DEMANDING money. Everyone here turned off their cell phones. So she calls the landline nonstop, but no one picks up. I finally unplugged it, locked the front door, and went back about my business. About two hours later there is this huge pounding on the door and they let her in. She then proceeds to scream at my father-in-law while he just sits there and takes it, and then goes upstairs and gets money from her mother. Meanwhile my wife has brought her purse into my room and hid it, and is cowering behind me like a five year old. I told her if her sister barges in here, I would not be doing nothing and you better believe I'd punch a girl out. I don't know why the hell they don't stand up for themselves, but I guess the constant spoiling they did to her as a kid has resulted in this monster.
We actually haven't seen her since this incident with one exception, where she came home, grabbed a blanket, and drove away. Haven't heard much from her except for this little interesting nugget-- she wants to let her new boyfriend move in with her. This guy is a currently-unemployed ex-Japan Self Defense Force member who has some kind of sickness. They have been "going out" (used loosely since he lives hours away and has no car or money for the train) for only a few weeks.
But getting back to the visa stuff: So after five days of not telling her sister, my wife finally sends her a message that we are heading to the States in a few weeks. The reaction was priceless:
"I AM DISOWNING THE FAMILY! YES I AM GOING TO LEGALLY DIVORCE MYSELF FROM ALL OF YOU!!! DO NOT CALL ME ANYMORE. I AM REMOVING MYSELF FROM OUR CELL PHONE FAMILY PLAN. I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE CARE OF OUR PARENTS, YOU ARE ALL DEAD TO ME. I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU!" Mind you after this mail, shitloads more followed. But the best part is that my in-laws seemed kind of happy about this. They know she is full of shit, and on top of that, they pay for her cell phone and gas bills. I think they'd be happy as shit to not have their brat of a daughter barging in on them anymore, I really do. But this isn't going to happen anyway.
Today's hate-mail was my sister-in-law gleefully informing everyone that she wants to get married to Mr. Discharged and that she is really going to cut off herself from the family. My mother-in-law just laughed and called her an idiot. If she really gets hitched to this poor guy, I am going to be very, very glad I will be living in another country. The shit that is going to happen...