Troubled Trio

I have come to realize that my Tuesday lunchtime class is clinically insane. As the weeks go by, their craziness intensifies. When I first began teaching them at the office block a few miles away from Terakoya, they were quite reserved and would not show their true characters. Now that they are used to me, they are quite willing to expose themselves as the gaggle of loonies they truly are.
The trio of kooky characters are Syuuti - an unkempt and gangly car mechanic; Makiko - a young newlywed office worker; and Mitzuko - an elderly kindergarten teacher. Together, they are an unstoppable team of mayhem and lunacy.
I can deduce that their insanity is coming to the boil because their weekend activities have become quite irrational and bizarre.
Take Syuuti for example. Six months ago he was quite guarded as to what he got up to at the weekend, but now he is quite happy to divulge everything he does and, quite frankly, I preferred it when he didn't say a word. Recently, he chirpily told Makiko and Mitzuko how he spent a lovely weekend in Kyushu. Makiko and Mitzuko asked what he did.
"I went to a strip club with my friends and then watched porn in my hotel room. Ah-hahaha!"
From sheer surprise, I spat out some water I was drinking from a bottle.
"What Syuuti meant was...." I floundered, trying to redeem this awkward situation in front of a stunned Makiko and Mitzuko. "What Syuuti meant was..was....what did you mean Syuuti?"
He stared at me with sincerity. "I meant just what I said. That I watched strippers and porn," he said with a hint of pride.
I looked at Syuuti, and not having a clue as to how to expand this conversation without the possibility of him revealing more unwholesome facts, I asked Makiko and Mitzuko what they did at the weekend, hoping it would contain nice topics to talk about in an English lesson - like bunny rabbits or flower arranging. This is not the first time Syuuti has divulged information that should have been kept to himself. For example, a few weeks ago, it had been snowing heavily in Iida so after driving through the snow to my lesson, I remarked to my students that I had never experienced such heavy snowfall. This remark then evolved into the weather conditions of England and Japan. After ten minutes of this idle chatter, I asked my students if they liked the snow. Makiko and Mitzuko both shuddered and said they hated it because they had to constantly clear it from their drive-way every morning. I noticed Syuuti was hearing their woes with a thoughtful silence. I asked Syuuti his opinion.
"I like the snow," he said.
" Why?" I asked.
"I'll tell you why," he said, with a pointed finger. "I like it because snow means that there will be more crashes on the road which means my business will profit. Ahahaha!" he laughed with his customary cackle.
"How's business at the moment then?" I said.
"Booming!" he declared.
Syuuti isn't the lone wacko in the class. The other two are equally eccentric, but in a harmless way. At least they don't pray for death and destruction on the roads.
Makiko, who is in her late twenties, is a good laugh and will always make us chuckle with her impulsive attitude towards life. I think alcohol is the reason behind this because she drinks gallons of the stuff, and will gladly admit this fact to the class. Without fail, her weekend highlights include drinking two crates of beer with her husband and playing computer games whilst pissed, and not just at the weekend. She says she drinks beer everyday. I half-joked recently whether she drank before the lesson and she responded with an ambiguous laugh, and nothing else, so I'm not sure if she is intoxicated in my lessons or not. I wouldn't put it past her judging by her unpredictable character. I have to be prepared for any Makiko-related randomness in my lessons. A few weeks ago we were working through an exercise that looked at unusual English expressions like 'white lies' 'back-seat driver' and 'hand stands'. I asked the class if they knew what this expression meant. They looked puzzled, so I half-heartedly told them. I described the process of doing a handstand. I even drew a picture of a stick-man doing one. Makiko's face suddenly brightened. "I love hand standing!" she said, as she jumped up from her seat.
Slightly perplexed by her eager reaction, I asked why she likes them and why she was standing up.
"I did them everyday when I was a child. I still like doing them," she said with joy, and started to do a demonstration. She took a few steps away from the table, firmly placed her hands on the floor and flipped the lower half of her body over her head. She then started to do a handstand shuffle across the room. She was very agile and started to do the splits in mid-air. Syuuti, Mitzuko and I all clapped with delight. Spurred on by our seal of approval, Makiko started doing a 360 degree turn on her hands. It was great entertainment, but I was aware that the boss of the company was working next door, and I pictured him getting annoyed by the rowdy behaviour that was going on next to him. If he walked in at this precise moment he would see a scene whereby no English was being exchange whilst Syuuti, Mitzuko and myself were clapping and encouraging the upturned Makiko to do "More! More! More!"
I begrudgingly brought a halt to proceedings. The trio looked sad. I did too. It meant I would have to teach stupid English instead of marvelling at Makiko's handstand tricks. Makiko, however, wasn't finished.
"I can do cart wheels as well," she said with an infectious grin. The other two looked happy about this. Knowing that the lesson had already descended into anarchy, I put my feet on the desk, leant back in my chair with my hands behind my head. "Go ahead," I said, with resignation. And off she went cart-wheeling around the room to the sounds of a rhythmic beat being clapped by Syuuti, Mitzuko and myself.
The final student, Mitzuko, is the oldest out of the trio, being in her mid-sixties, which might attribute to the ever-present flu she carries with her. Every week I ask how she is, and every week she will answer, "I have a snuffle."
I correct her and tell her the word to use is "a sniffle" even though I'm not sure this twee word is suitable in the modern age. But her "snuffling" anecdotes remain the same each week. It consists of Mitzuko waking up with a fever, going to the doctor for a check-up and going home to rest. It’s amazing she finds time to study English amidst her busy schedule of sickness.
As well as an aptitude for absorbing illnesses, she has a remarkable talent for being brutally honest. If she is not happy about something she will say so, which is a very un-Japanese characteristic. At the end of my lesson last week which consisted of adjectives used to describe movies, I asked the class if it was a useful lesson. Syuuti and Makikio said it was, but Mitzuko shook her head. I asked her what was wrong with it.
"Boring," she said, with an incongruous smile.
"Boring? In what way," I inquired.
"I don't know. Just boring," she said, still smiling.
I smiled back and went "Well..er...I'll try to make it more interesting next time. Perhaps the lesson needs to be more fun. Would you like more language games?"
"No," she laughed with a cluck, and abruptly waved goodbye to me.
At the end of my most recent lesson, I was determined to win back her favour, so I peppered the lesson with games and more student based activities. I sweated through that lesson trying to make her happy and at the end I asked her, whilst panting out of breath and gripping a chair for support, what she thought of it.
"Yes. Better. Well done," she said with a clipped tone.
Boy, is she a tough cookie to please.
I am very fond of this trio, but for their benefit and my own, I may have to strap straight-jackets on each of them in order to have a more normal and peaceful English lesson.