Wanting to Clear Up the Misunderstanding: The Anguish of Tsuno Kariya

Do you know the comedian Ryuji Akiyama?
He is a member of the well-known comedy duo "Robert" and is a man who draws attention for his unique character acting.

In his "Creator's File," he plays various fictional characters, and he has generated a lot of laughter with his acting skills and creativity.

※This is one of my favorites.

His charm lies in his destructive power to make people laugh with just a single photo.
His choice of words is also exquisite, and his sense of comedy is condensed into every move he makes.

He stakes his life on being silly, but he doesn't let it end as just a joke. The fact that he has elevated it into a career is what makes him amazing, and at the same time, what makes him scary.

However, that is not his only charm.
Even though he is always acting silly, he has a family and is raising children.
I came to like him even more after hearing about his parenting methods.

He says that when teaching his children about "danger," he conveys the risks by recreating realistic scenarios.
For example, when teaching the lesson that "it's dangerous to run while holding chopsticks," he intentionally runs with chopsticks himself, then falls and pretends to be covered in blood (using stage blood).
Conveying danger through visual impact—I was impressed that it was truly an Akiyama-style educational method.


I don't have props like stage blood, and my acting skills are nowhere near his.
But what I do have instead is amountain of "failure stories".

Instead of stage blood, I decided to spill my own past failures when teaching my children.

🔪🔪🔪

The time goes back to when my daughter was in her final year of preschool.

Crafts became popular at nursery school, and my daughter would hold scissors at home, cutting up paper and cardboard.
One day, my daughter saw me opening mail with a utility knife and said,

"Mom, lend me that."

A utility knife is far too dangerous for a preschooler.
"Utility knives are dangerous, so you can use one when you're in elementary school," I told her.
But my daughter's eyes were glued to the utility knife.
She clearly wasn't convinced.


So I decided to play my trump card.
"I also messed up with a utility knife when I was little."
I said that while holding out my arm. There is still a scar there that hasn't faded.


"When I was in elementary school, I was cutting cardboard to make a doghouse for my stuffed animal, and at that moment, I accidentally stabbed my arm with the utility knife.
Blood sprayed from where I stabbed it, and the floor and walls were covered in blood. It was a scene straight out of a horror movie. It's that scary, so I think it's better to wait until you're a little older to use one."


Listening to her mother's story, my daughter stared intently at the scar.
"Utility knives are scary, huh," she said quietly.
With this, her interest in utility knives should have been sealed.
I was convinced of that.
Until this moment.


Some time after that,
one day when I went to pick up my daughter from nursery school on my way home from work.

At the entrance, my daughter's classmate Taro (a pseudonym) ran up to me with his eyes sparkling and a huge smile on his face.

Then, he asked me this:

"Maru-chan's mom, is it true that you stabbed yourself with a kitchen knife and were covered in blood in the past?"

It was such a fastball of a question that I didn't understand it at first.

A kitchen knife? Covered in blood? Stabbed yourself?
What kind of dangerous story is that?


"No, no, I didn't stab myself with a kitchen knife?" I replied, breaking into a cold sweat.
But Taro continued with an expectant look.
"But I heard it from Maru-chan. That my mom did a 'stab' in the past."

At that moment, I realized.

That's right, it's the story about the utility knife incident.
To teach my daughter that "utility knives are dangerous," I had told her a slightly exaggerated version of a failure I had when I was in elementary school.
That story about how "I accidentally stabbed my arm with a utility knife and was covered in blood."

As I gradually sorted things out, a "beep" warning sound rang out in my brain.


When I looked around, the other parents were glancing at me.

・・・・Or so it felt.


Cold sweat ran down my back.


My failure story was meant for education, but I never thought it would become horror material in the nursery school gossip.

Even though I meant to talk about 【how utility knives are dangerous】, before I knew it, it had become a story about 【how I am dangerous】😱😱

🔪🔪🔪

Ever since then, the time spent dropping off and picking up my child at daycare has turned into a horror show for me.

Every time the other moms see me, I can hear them whispering.

“Hey, did she use a kitchen knife...?”
“No, no, it was a box cutter.”
“Either way, it’s scary.”

Their cold gazes pierce right through me.

....Or so it feels.

Of course, no such conversations are actually taking place.
However, once you start doubting, the delusions don't stop, and the world instantly becomes a paranoid horror show.

In reality, the other moms never said anything like that, and I made it to graduation without incident, but for a while back then, I was constantly worried about what others thought every time I went to the daycare.

Education is difficult.
And clearing up misunderstandings is even harder.

Mr. Akiyama,
how about the next Creator's File be
【Tsunono Kariya, a mom who is being distanced by other moms because a story about cutting her finger with a box cutter was misunderstood as her chopping off her finger with a kitchen knife】?

#WhatAreYouTalkingAbout

*By the way, I kind of wish I had put a bit more of a twist on the name 【Tsunono Kariya】. If you have any better name ideas, please let me know in the comments.

Also, I wanted the illustration to look like Robert Akiyama, but it ended up looking like Matsuko. Regrettable.

#WhatAreYouTalkingAbout
#DoesItEvenMatter

Thank you for reading until the end.☺️


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