This Can't end well, Redux

There are persimmons rotting in my kitchen.

This is not, as might often be the case, an accident. Not a result of sloppy housekeeping or poor choices at the grocery store.

This is intentional.





I came home from work the other day to find a string of peeled persimmons hanging from the laundry rack in the middle of the kitchen (Space is limited, we make do as best we can).

I didn't say anything. I've learned not to question such things, as I know they will be out eventually.

So, eventually, my wife informed me that our neighbor (always a generous supplier of fruits and vegetables from her parents' garden--no small thing with Japanese prices) had given us some persimmons. At this point, the subject having been broached, I ventured a question.

"And, ummmm...Why are they hanging peeled from the laundry rack?"

"I'm drying them." Ahhh.. I knew that my wife likes persimmons a bit on the aged side--she only buys them from the grocery store when they've been marked down a couple of times and the fruit flies are starting to rub their tiny hands in anticipation.

"And why aren't thy hanging, say, by the window in the little alcove where I won't keep running into them and getting persimmon juice on my arm?"

"Because I need to see them!"

Of course.

So there are persimmons hanging in my kitchen until they get all wrinkly.

The problem is, they have been hanging there for three days now, and there are no wrinkles. There is a puddle of persimmon juice on the floor, yes, and a growing aroma of aged fruit. One of them has even sort of...melted...around the string holding it up, so that it looks like the the white nylon rope is springing out of the fruit like some kind of shish kebab. But no wrinkles.

So I hold my tongue. I will say nothing, not even when the inevitable happens and the fruit flies come and we tie the smelly mess up in a plastic bag and pitch it (the only alternative is too horrible to contemplate...). Why do I say nothing?

Because my wife is a wonderful, loving person, who takes care of me when I need it--which is all the time. Because even though we didn't actually say the words, that old stuff about "sickness and health, richer and poorer (daft and clever)" holds in our house.

Because she'd kick my ass if I so much as made a peep about the undoubted catastrophe that is coming to our kitchen.

Because I love her.