One very hot summer day, our family took a trip down to Kyushu, Southern Japan, to visit a former professor of mine. Our children were nine and six at the time, and prone to quarrel about everything. We thought that once we were away from their toys, books, and friends, they might feel a little sisterly solidarity and bond a bit better, but this proved not to be the case.
They quarrelled about who sat on which side of the car we had borrowed. Over who sat next to their father or me, (preferences changing from day to day). Over where we would go or not go, what we would eat or not eat, who was given the larger ice cream or biggest piece of cake, and who got to stand closer to the octopus in the aquarium. Going on a vacation with kids is the biggest oxymoron I can imagine. Truly, once you've had kids, your days of carefree holidays are pretty much over.
The heat didn't help, but we finally got a brief respite in an airconditioned hotel room, when we managed to organize coloring books and crayons and get a delicious thirty minutes of uninterrupted, rivalry-free quiet.
Then my former professor showed up with Tadashi.
Tadashi was a perfectly nice young man, a graduate student who hoped to become an art teacher. He was delighted to meet us and charming with our kids, who took to him almost worryingly, bringing him drawing after drawing and generally bending his ear as they eagerly told him about their friends, their art classes, and their preferred media. (Crayons for the youngest, magic markers for the eldest.) Tadashi could hardly get a word in edgewise and frequently looked a little overwhelmed by our offspring and their rather suffocating attention, but he took it well.
The trouble started after he left.
"I'm going to marry him," our eldest proudly informed us.
"He's mine!" insisted her sister.
"I'm older than you!"
"Big deal! I was born in Japan!"
"So what? I've lived here longer!"
"That's just because you're older!"
"Who cares, you stupid kuso baba?" (Don't ask; they didn't learn it from us)
"Moooom!"
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I've heard stories about sisters quarrelling over suitors, but not when they are nine and six respectively.
"He's too old for both of you," I told them.
"Uncle Paul's girlfriend is 20 years younger than him!"
I sighed. "That's different."
And for the next two days, we had to listen to their squabbling about Tadashi and who 'got him.'
Before we left the area, Tadashi paid us another visit and invited us to his house. His mother, he told us, enjoyed showing off her hand-painted doll collection. Our girls were ecstatic, but it wasn't the dolls they were looking forward to seeing.
Takahara-san, my former professor, met us before we left for Tadashi's, and I happened to mention that our girls were taken with Tadashi, though I refrained from telling him just how much so.
"Tadashi's a really nice kid," he informed us. "And I've taught him and his brother."
"He has a brother?" I asked, winking at my eldest.
"Not just a brother -- a twin brother. They look exactly alike."
As soon as he left the room, our eldest turned to her sister.
"You can have the brother. I get Tadashi."
