This week in review: From a Wednesday(07/16/08) to another(07/23/08) - part 1

What the hell.

Well, interesting(?) things have been happening to me recently. Not in the mind-blowing sense, mind you, but rather in the sense of slightly odd series of events. So let's begin.

Last Wednesday: After a half-day at work, I, as well as a few other coworkers decide to go check out this burger joint that Leah and I found*. So we are in the subway** and it being Seoul, it's pretty busy - on the way there, we're chillin', making small talk with coworkers as we're standing as there are no free seats, holding onto the handles, and just waiting for our stop to come.
Well, on one stop, this older ajumma that was sitting down right in front of me, decides to stand up. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Well, at that precise instant I was talking with my coworker/boss, Nate, and had my hand turned away.
*Actually, this place was opened by the owner of a bar that Leah and I frequented. It's also in the foreigner district, so all the clientele are essentially expats.
**If you've read the other posts so far, I'm hoping that you know at this point that we use mass transit extensively

Anyhow, you would typically think, knowing the Dan you guys knew in the States, or, possibly in Korea, "What did you do this time, you ijit?"

So, what did I do?

Nothing. Not a god damned thing.

I was just standing there, talking to Nate like I said and standing still, holding onto the subway handle when the lady decides to headbutt my elbow (on the arm that was holding the handle, by the way). Yeah. She wanted to find out who'd win; her head or my elbow. Unfortunately for her, my elbow won.
Smartassedness aside, I quickly turned over to see her and muttered an apology to the lady.

(Was I supposed to apologize at this instance? Anyhow . . ..)

Turning back to Nate, who saw the whole thing, we kinda had an awkward chuckle as we both weren't sure what kind of response to take.

Well, I guess that was a bad move, as her daughter, on seeing me talking to Nate(a white dude - stand up guy, by the way) in fluent English, maybe thought I was laughing at the lady.

So naturally, she decides to go off on me, saying things like, "You shouldn't have been in her way/you need to look out for them/blahblahblah" in Korean, while her mom is pulling her out of the subway.

Now at this point I'm stupefied more than anything at this point, and I'm just staring at her(and so is Nate), not knowing exactly what to say to all this.

Then, it gets kinda weird. The girl, seeing that her screaming in Korean is not getting the reaction she wants and seeing me hanging out with a whiteboy, proceeds to do her best to scold me in her best "I speak English" impression while the mom keeps pulling her out of the subway, which just stupefies me even more.

Then the doors close on her as she is screaming.

At this point, for some kind of karmic balance and entertainment value, I would love to say that "Oh, the doors closed on her noggin, her head got chopped off and everyone lived happily ever after" and all that, but real life being what it is, she was out of the subway, the door closed, and we went on our merry (and now somewhat awkward) way.

The rest of the week gets weirder. Just wait.