an unspoken battle

My mother is a type of person who accumulates stuff. In addition, she likes putting millions of accumulated stuff elsewhere in orders. I didn’t inherit these characters obviously—I can make a huge mess with much less stuff.
Lipsticks, powder foundations that I used in my college.(I am in thirties now.), trial sewing kits, seasonings, snacks or vitamins that are already expired a few years ago, magazines, newspapers, stuffed animals, toys, garment, and unknown documents--- those oldies occupied my mom’s house.
A space with one-inch depth in the wall of the toilet, for instance, small empty perfume bottles are on display. There are about 40 of them. Thinking about how to brush away the dust gives me a huge headache. When it comes to the drawers, well, I avoid opening them----I will faint.
Among all the rooms in her house, the bathroom was the most troublesome place.
First, there was a stack of free magazines sent from credit companies or airline companies. “Mom, they were boring and no worth reading.” “I know, but that’s why they are in the bathroom.” A big question mark pops out in my mind. Then, I found that she reads them during the bath. I just wonder how long it will take her to finish all of them-- a Lifelong-attempt.
Second, the chest in the bathroom is filled with too many towels. I bet there are 100 or so. Just for your info, she lives alone and who needs so many towels for only herself? More badly, whenever we traveled together, she often stole bath towels from hotels. “Mom, you have enough.” Her response,” I like the texture of them! Leave me alone!” We fought over this stupid towel situation once or twice each trip. This summer, during our trip, surprisingly, I didn’t see her doing so. I thought that she already got the meaning of “enough.” Yet, when I saw her unpacking her luggage after the trip, I caught her taking 2 towels out of the bag. “….” I was speechless and she was more determined than I expected.
Then in the other chests and some drawers, there were collections of hotel amenities, like shampoos, creams, toothbrushes, razors and so forth. Some shampoos and creams were actually collected from almost 2 decades ago. I am not joking! They were oxidized. I could not stand this and acted on. Knowing her determination, yet, I acknowledged that there were no chances to win this game through a straightforward approach. So, one night, after taking the bath, I throw those shampoos from the Stone Age into the garbage can, while she was asleep.
Then, the next morning, I saw those shampoos that I thought I’d thrown back in the chest. “?” First, I thought that I was half sleep, hoping that it was just an illusion. After taking shower and feeling fresh, I gingerly looked at the spot in the chest and they were there smiling off right in front of my eyes. I was in awe. I should have put the garbage out of the house…..
Then, after a few minutes, I busted into laugh, imagining how she panicked finding her collection of the oldies were missing, how frantic she tried to find them, eventually got her hand into the garbage can, pulled them out and put them back in order.
After all, we acted as if nothing happened. Up to today, the incident was never mentioned and will never be. Indeed, she won this unspoken battle over me.

I'm a coffee lover,

in another word, a coffee addict. I am not kind of people who make fuss about the food or the service in public, but when it comes to coffee, I could be a bitch. (All the people whom got involved with me to some degree know that fact.) My favorite coffee is "Americano," and I hate "American." You may say what's the difference? well, adding "o" in the end of american actually makes a huge difference. Let me make the thing clear here for you, in case you don't know. American is drip coffee, which often looks over-brewed earl gray tea like color and tastes like drinking water with a drop of some kind of liquid medication. Awful!! On the other hand, americano is one shot of espresso weakened with hot water. It should look dark chocolate-like color and it still has strong bitterness and flavor that are in the espresso. Yet, unlike one shot espresso which you can drink in one sip, you can enjoy as long as you do with a regular coffee.

That being said, in NYC, I often had a hard time to get coffee in the way I wanted, which also means that I myself gave people served coffee an extra hard time.

There are three types of places in NYC.
1. places where they don't have americano in the menu.
2. places where they have americano in the menu, yet they don't know what that is.
3. places where they have americano in the menu and they know what that is.

at 1 situation, I have to tell waiters, " I want to have an espresso in a regular cup and hot water and milk on the side please."
However, whether my pronunciation was really bad or the waiters were not listening or just being an idiot, what I often got was an espresso in the espresso cup and hot water in a huge mag cup. If I follow the direction that they served, a coffee became more american than american coffee. so I had to call the waiters to explain from the scratch.

at 2 situation, well, I ordered americano assuming that they knew what that was. yet, again what I often got was just american coffee. so I had to ask first if they knew about what americano meant and how it was to make. usually, they didn't know how to or they put too much hot water. hence, I had to explain like I did at 1 situation.

at 3 situation, like the situations above mentioned, I still got american as they put too much water. Hence, I explained like at 1, 2.

After all those traumatic misery, in order to avoid any confusion and confrontation with the waiters and to save unnesessary times, in any places, I decided to order only like this " could i get espresso in a REGULAR CUP with HOT WATER ON THE SIDE, please?" with my body language. I spoke very slowly and clearly. (the capital parts were the places where I used my body language.)

So, now I've been back in Tokyo where all the food was satisfying and amazing and I thought I would be able to run away from this hustle in coffee situation. However, my expectation was easily buried.

First of all, they don't have espresso to begin with. Well, I can't even fight about it.
Ok, I can take 100 steps back to compromise.
However, the biggest problem here is that they don't have DECAFE!!!!!
I ask waiters at places if they have de-cafe, then they are either frozen feeling ashamed of the fact they have something that they don't know as the professionals, or they give you a look as if I said something stupid.
To my deffense, I do love coffee, but I also do love sleeping in the evening. so usually, after 5 p.m., I drink de-cafe. What I love about coffee is the smell, flavor and bitterness. Not so much about caffeine. So, how could I survive without de-cafe? Well, you can find star-bucks in tokyo, but this is too much of compromising to me. After all, the US doesn't have a coffee culture where american coffee at dunk-in donut was considered as the best nationwide. (this is a big joke. )

Sigh..... My solution for this issue is to stock de-cafe beans at home. Yet, still after dining out, it would be nice to have a de-cafe espresso in a regular cup with hot water on the side.
Sigh 2......I am even missing some fights against some waiters in NYC over one cup of coffee.