The Secret · American Version

Illustration: HOUSEHOLD UNFAMILIARS — Plate, American edition Zoom Full-size scan

HOUSEHOLD UNFAMILIARS

Calamitates materfamiliae

RANGE First apartments, charming old houses, quaint summer cottages, experimental solar living modules, completely remodeled kitchens, dens that need some work, unfinished basements, north-lit studios, semi-equipped lofts and secure subterranean bed-sitters.

HABITS In any household with which you are unfamiliar, there you will find the Household Unfamiliars. Be it your first apartment or your last nursing home, these devilish sprites are there with a litany of liabilities: Putting the light switch on the wrong side of the door, mysteriously adding or subtracting a step from the stairs in the dark, blowing the bathroom door locked behind you, shifting ankle-breaking furniture while your attention is elsewhere, jamming windows open or closed, exchanging handles on the shower controls, breaking knobs off in your hands, and stacking pyramids of head-thumping canned goods on unstable shelves in innocent looking closets. All these pranks and more are the work of the Household Unfamiliar— but his special province is the refrigerator, where he moves as soon as you start to feel at home. Ostensibly, his job there is to turn the light off when you open the door and on when you close it, but he further diverts himself by lending to your costly imported beer a skunk-like odor, tempering your cheese to a gem-like hardness, and spilling dill brine into the yogurt. He specializes in unscheduled defrostings and freezer burns. Old wives’ tales have it that open boxes of baking soda and herbal bouquets deter the Household Unfamiliar from his activities. But as any housekeeper can tell you, you are just as likely to find a spilled box of baking soda and a broken bouquet of herbs commingled on top of the mousse.

HISTORY As might be assumed from the Household Unfamiliar’s preference for the chilly regions of the refrigerator, this creature came to us from Scandinavia, a direct descendant of that Nordic domestic pest, the Kobold. Thus, however neatly you box, store, cap, and wrap your foodstuffs, these “frigidaredevils” believe that what you wish to find when you open the door is a smorgasbord. During the course of the Household Unfamiliar’s food scattering experiments, that great American dish, chow mein, was invented. SPOTTER’S

TIPS In the fridge: green spots on the bread, ketchup spots on the ice cream, and gravy spots on the lettuce. In the rest of the house: brown spots on the bathroom ceiling, yellow spots on the mattress, and indelible spots on the laundry.

Two editions, one page

The American and Japanese printings side by side. Click either page to zoom in.

Japanese edition page: HOUSEHOLD UNFAMILIARS — 日本語版 · Japanese edition

日本語版の本文

The Home Wreckers · Household Unfamiliars

The Japanese text with an English back-translation.

Japanese text

棲息地高級マンション, しゃれた古い洋風づくりの邸宅, ふうがわりな別荘地の家, 実験的な太陽熱利用のモダン・ハウス,改築した部屋, 急造した子供部屋などによく出没し, 住人を困らせてはよろこんでいる。とくに新築の家の場合, 期待が大きければ大きいほどたくさん見ることができるだろう。

習性家庭内でひき起こされるあらゆる面倒なことの原因は,この妖精たちである。たとえば,ドアを開けたとき, 部屋の電気のスイッチが蝶つがいのある側の壁についていていちどなかに入ってドアを閉めてからでないと明かりをつけられないとか、トイレの鍵が堅くて閉まらないとか、台所の流しのパイプが曲がりすぎていて逆流してくるとか、家具が部屋の寸法から少しばかりはみだしてしまい、不幸なことにそのはみだした部分の角にいつも足をぶつけて痛い思いをしているとか, シャワーの水と湯の表示があべこべだったりとか、ドアのノブを引っぱったら取れてしまったとか、とにかくこの妖精たちのいたずらは,それが新居であった場合ほど腹がたってくる。しかし、この妖精たちがいちばん本領を発揮するのは, 冷蔵庫のなかである。まず冷蔵庫のドアを開けたときになかの明かりを消し、ドアを閉めたとき明かりがつくように変えてしまう。つぎに輸入品の高級白ワインにスカンクのような臭いをつけたり、チーズを宝石のようにコチコチに堅くしたり、野菜から水分を奪ってフニャフニャにしたり、魚の臭いを肉に, 肉の臭いを魚につけてみたり, とにかく冷蔵庫のなかはこの妖精たちにとっては無法地帯なのだ。温度調節も自由自在にできる。急に温度を上げたり下げたり、ビールを飲もうと思ったらシャーベットになっていたり、冷凍室の氷が解けて洪水になったり、とにかく手がつけらないあばれ者なのである。冷蔵庫のなかの荒らしか歴史たでもわかるように,この妖精たちはスカンディナビアの出身で, 北方のやっかい者コウボルしたがトの直系の子孫である。って, 食料品をどんなにていねいに箱に入れようと、ふたをしようと, サランラップで包もうと、この妖精たちの活動をおさえることはできない。

私立探偵の情報バスルームの天井についたしみ, マットレスの裏側のカビ、洗濯物の落ちない汚れなどがそうである。

English back-translation

Habitat Luxury apartments, charming old Western-style mansions, quirky vacation homes, experimental solar-powered modern houses, renovated rooms, hastily constructed children’s rooms — they turn up frequently in all these places, delighting in troubling the residents. The higher the expectations in a brand new home, the more of them you’ll find.

Behavior These sprites are the cause of every annoying thing that happens inside a home. For instance: opening a door to find the light switch is on the hinge side of the wall, so you have to go in, close the door behind you, and only then can you turn the light on. Or the toilet lock is so stiff it won’t close. Or the kitchen sink pipe is bent at such an extreme angle that water flows backward. Or the furniture is just slightly too large for the room dimensions, and you keep painfully stubbing your toe on that protruding corner. Or the hot and cold labels on the shower are switched. Or the door handle comes off in your hand when you pull it. In a new home especially, these pranks are infuriating. But where these sprites truly come into their own is inside the refrigerator. First they reverse the light — off when the door opens, on when it closes. Then they give imported premium white wine a skunk-like odor, harden cheese to gem-like rigidity, drain vegetables of moisture until they go limp, swap fish smell onto the meat and meat smell onto the fish. The refrigerator interior is essentially a lawless zone for these sprites. Temperature control is entirely at their whim — suddenly raising or lowering it, turning your beer into sherbet, flooding the freezer compartment when the ice melts. Truly uncontrollable hooligans.

History As their behavior inside refrigerators makes clear, these sprites are of Scandinavian origin — direct descendants of that northern nuisance, the Kobold. Consequently, no matter how carefully you box, lid, or clingfilm your foodstuffs, their activities cannot be suppressed.

Field Intelligence Stains on the bathroom ceiling, mold on the underside of mattresses, laundry stains that won’t come out — these are the signs.

HOUSEHOLD UNFAMILIARS

Two editions, one page

日本語版の本文

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