Return of the Knickers

I think my mum had a little word with my Borrowers. I'm not sure how; perhaps I left Skype running last night while I was swearing at my washing up and telling it to do itself for the fifteenth time. Perhaps they climbed up on to my desk and had a conversation with her while I was in the bath for the third time (it's very humid in Nichinan at the moment). Either way, she had a word with me and then she had a word with them, and it obviously worked.

Holly Smale, she emailed me.

Except that she didn't, because she's just had large scale surgery on her right hand and can't really do anything with it apart from hold it aloft like an injured boxer and pull faces.

Hollly Smle, my mum emailed me with her left hand. Are u tlling me tht u have no wy of loking ur door and no wy of escping and no knickers on? Are u tlling me tht u just tld the whle world that u hav no underwear and an opn house? Am not happy. Not sensble of u. Am snding knickrs straght away. Find ur KEYS. And she capitalised KEYS, just in case I had problems working out what the hell she was talking about.

I didn't say I had no underwear at all, I emailed straight back, rather offended. I do have some. I just have to do my laundry every three days, that's all. And that is far too much.

But it was too late; preservation of her daughter's wavering dignity came first, so mum obviously had a very strong word with the little people and threatened them with necessary violence, because things immediately started coming back.

First they returned my car keys. They left them in my third drawer, inside an empty box of ChocoPies. I think they ate the ChocoPies first - because I certainly don't remember eating ten when the box was full on Tuesday - but, as they left all the wrappers in my waste paper basket, it's going to be hard to prove anything.

Then, the following morning, they returned my house keys. They put them in the pockets of my jeans, so they were cleaned nice and thoroughly by a spin through the washing machine. This was very considerate of the little people, even if it did risk both breaking my domestic appliances and putting a hole in the only pair of jeans that will fit me in the next year or so (I am not Japanese jean size; I don't think I ever have been). But - as the little people bravely put their lives in danger by climbing inside the machine to leave them there in the first place - I'm not going to be too critical about it. They returned them, and that's what counts.

They also - in a bid to apologise and encourage my mum to leave them alone, presumably - returned three lighters, six hair grips, a biro and a mini packet of peanuts, unopened. In a fit of overwhelming strength they had lifted up my futon and placed them all under there, scattered at apparent random; a momentous feat, because even I struggle to pick it up as often as I should.

As a result I've been rather hopefully waiting for the return of my knickers. I've even carefully cleared a space in my underwear drawer for them, which involved taking everything else out and dumping in at the back of the wardrobe in a strategically managed lump.

Nothing. Not a peep. Not even the minging beige ones with pink flowers on them. Nada. I am still knickerless (relatively, not absolutely).

So, Borrowers; this is a message to you, in case you've worked out how to read this blog. Return my knickers, or I will get my mum on you. And she's already got one hand bandaged up; she's got nothing to lose my smashing up the other one as well.