Might we be rescued from our own mistake?
But still making more!!
November 2024
The truck pulled up outside the Prayer House and I looked in surprised to see it was just a local courier. This was how they delivered glass products in Japan?? In Australia glass doors and windows get delivered on the back of a small truck with an A-frame, holding the products upright. Perhaps there was such a frame inside the truck??? But as the delivery driver opened up the back of the truck it revealed the glass doors were packed in boxes and laying flat, stacked on each other.
It should have been exciting to be receiving our glass doors, but my husband, Shujin, had made a terrible mistake with the order and now it just felt like we were receiving a burden. And an expensive one at that! Being custom made, we couldn’t return them. And he couldn’t cancel the order as we’d realised too late that we’d ordered the wrong sort of glass. Shujin had ordered internal glass doors, rather than the double-glazed glass doors he had intended to order. So he had decided that we’d just have to keep them.
Shujin decided he would install them alongside the existing doors that we had, for insulation. These new doors would also keep out the bugs. The glass was slipping in the existing doors, leaving gaps for mosquitos and other bugs to come in, and the wooden frames were loose in the tracks, also leaving lots of gaps for bugs to enter. At least with another set of doors installed in front of them we could keep out the bugs and some cold.
We helped the delivery driver unload the doors. I was grateful that Shujin was present. I helped carry the long thin boxes—the dismantled frames that the doors would be housed in—and left the big stuff to the men. Shujin and the delivery man slid the first door out of the back of the truck. Packaged inside a box, I thought they must have had to use a lot of bubble-wrap inside! Reaching the house, they tilted the box from being flat to being on its side so they could slide it into the doorway and lean it against the wall.
clink-clank-jingle-jangle-CRASH!
The door was broken. All the broken glass slid inside the box and hit the bottom.
“I can’t accept this order,” Shujin told the delivery man. “You’ll need to return it.”
As the truck drove away with our order I turned to Shujin. “Did God just answer your prayers??!” Had he been praying for a God to somehow fix the big mistake he’d made?
He gave me a hopeful smile, “Maybe!”
Shujin phone the glass shop. They didn’t want to take responsibility. After all, they had given a perfectly fine product to the courier, it wasn’t their mistake.
Shujin phone the courier company. They didn’t want to take responsibility. The glass shop should be packaging their products appropriately for shipping.
In the end, we had to keep the order. Only one door was broken, the glass shop would replace it free of charge.
So a few days later, we unloaded 3 doors from the courier and waited for the 4th door to be remade. It was disappointing. It felt like God might have rescued us from our own dodgy mistake. But by rescuing us, it would mean someone else had to pay, and I did feel bad about that. I didn’t have to feel guilty now, as we were’t rescued after all.
We would pay the price and my brain would work in overtime to figure out how to use these doors somewhere else (my bedroom? The kids bedroom? Okasan’s house??). We also had the suggestions to use them to separate living spaces or a closet in a room (Thanks
!) I really wanted to utilise them elsewhere so I could get the doors I actually wanted for my living room!In the meantime, our focus returned to the bathroom. We were in the final days of Shujin being at home before he started his new job and we needed to get as much done as possible! Not just because he wouldn’t be so available soon, but also because we had booked in for the bathroom installation to happen early January, so we needed to get our part done first!
Shujin had been working hard on the construction of the bathroom and toilet walls and new roof. We extended the roof so we could make a storage space beside the bathroom. Bob and Missy had claimed it for the bikes. Shujin had been anticipating a toolshed. If we didn’t already have a garden shed, I’d be wanting to claim it for that!
We not only extended the roof, but we also extend the toilet. Our toilet was so small, the door had no space to open internally. There was just enough space to stand between the toilet and the door—if you were the size of the average Japanese. If you weren’t, you’d be holding your breath in to squeeze into the space!
I was delighted that we were able to push the back wall of the toilet out to make the toilet longer. We couldn’t widen it, but just extending the length of the room would really help to give some breathing space! And then we could have the door open internally and we wouldn’t have to worry about opening it into an unsuspecting victim as they walked past the toilet!
The days were fast ticking by and Shujin was pressing to get things done. I’d cleared the rubble and dug out the dirt in the bathroom (with some help, which came with its own trials!) and now he was keen to poor the cement slab.
“We really need to get the cement done as soon as possible. It doesn’t dry in temperatures below 10°C, so we need to do it before the weather turns.”
I could see his urgency, but my mind was left contemplating this phenomenon. Doesn’t dry in temperatures below 10°C?! What do builders do in Hokkaido? They must have to plan it so they get all the cementing jobs done in just 6 months of the year!! And even in other parts of Japan… this must really impact the construction industry!
Fortunately for us, it was a balmy evening. It was late November, but I didn’t even need a jacket the evening was so mild. When the cold weather would come, I did not know, but I was certainly grateful to be able to work until 9pm at night without freezing my butt off!
With bags of cement powder, sand, gravel and stones, we tipped in the appropriate ratios into a large black tub, added water, and with shovels in hand, mixed it all together. Shujin had wanted to buy a cement mixer but I didn’t think it was worth it when we would only use it for such a small job.
Now I regretted. What a mistake!!
We made several tubs, working after dinner. I’d spent the week digging a massive hole and transporting the dirt across the yard in the wheelbarrow. I’d also cleared cement and tile rubble from the bathroom and toilet, lifting heavy bucket loads. I’d then dug the excess dirt out of the toilet and bathroom floors, lifting heavy bucket loads and transporting them in the wheelbarrow, across the yard and dumping them. Missy and Okasan had helped with some of it, but I’d been working at it every day, and now my right arm was dead.
I had next to no strength. But now I needed to help hand mix cement!! I couldn’t make it to the end, Shujin had to mix on his own. Instead, I took up another task. I stood in the cement and smoothed it over with a piece of timber to level it against the green laser beam.
With a dead arm, but a triumphant spirit of having completed the important task, Shujin and I started the short walk back to Okasan’s house, just 6 doors down the street.
“Oh, did you lock the front door?” checked Shujin.
“Yes Babe,” I replied, with much amusement. I mean, anyone could easily enter our house! They could just jump over the 1.5m brick bathroom wall! Shujin had put up the timber frame on top of the wall, but it was just a frame with no boards yet!
It wasn’t the first time Shujin had checked that we’d locked the front door, and each time he asked, I found it highly amusing! Why was it that one felt safer if the front door was locked? Even if one could easily enter from the side?!
Fortunately we lived in Japan, and rural Japan at that. Anyone would think we lived in South Africa the way that Shujin carried on at times!
Little credit did I give, however, to the fact that intruders could, and did, come to our parts of the world…
G’day! I’m Debbie, so glad you’re here! I’m an Aussie experiencing what it’s like to live in Japan. I started writing to share my experiences with family and friends and am delighted that Substack makes it possible to extend those friendships!
If you enjoy learning about living in a foreign country—the frustrations, laughs and wonder—you’ll enjoy being here.
If you have any interest in dementia and dementia caregiving, I see you, I feel you.
If you are curious about Japan, you’ll get to know about this beautiful country through the eyes of a foreigner.
If following renovation journeys is your thing, you’re in the right place! You’ll hear our stories about renovating our house, the Prayer House, and see the before and after pics—when we finally get there!
To all, welcome. So glad you’re here.
I always enjoy reading your posts!
I went through a renovation, too... But my apartment is much smaller and I had people working here. Still, I remember that period as one of the most exhausting in my life!
I like how you just started worrying about the building and construction industry of other states XD