An.nyong.ha.shim.ni.kka? This is not Dave writing, but a guy who sees the world about 12 inches south of your normal writer. My name is Lex. Hailing from America and living in Iksan for about 18 months.
I was telling Big D last night that I wanted to write something for his blog, probably for the sole reason that it gives me something to do other than inspect and chase down where the moldy food smell is coming from in my room. I preceded to tell him the following story, and he agreed to turn it over to you netizens via D’s blogsite.
I spend most nights in my chair; hit the tunes, watch tv, studying various things. And Tuesday was no exception. Still drained all over from a weekend vacation and heavy soccer and MMA training, I decided my night would end with a few shots of Soju and I’d hit bed. As planned, I was in bed quite early, proud of myself and looking forward to an easy Wednesday!
Fast forward to Wednesday morning at 9:30am. My eyes open to the alarm and the room is spinning. Now stop! Imagine this scenario so you can understand where I am. You walk into your house, put the keys on your little key holder, you mechanically toss you phone on the counter and you reach into the fridge to grab a lil snack before dinner. As you are munching you head towards the bathroom, open the door and flick on the lights BAM! On the other side of that door is no longer your bathroom. You are somewhere in France, with a bag of squid in your hand. You know this feeling because you have been to France before, but the sun is unusually bright for this time of year. You are in a field, but there are empty boats sitting in a meadow and you know they don’t belong there. You question where you are. There are six bees in your ear, three in each just buzzing away like they were performing for a crowd, yet your hands are so heavy you can’t swat them away. You just moan. Long and loud (that’s what she said). Now keep that weird feeling, and change the elements.
You aren’t in France, you are naked in your bedroom yet you never sleep naked. That’s not squid in your hands, it’s an empty bottle of BBQ sauce. The sun, bedroom lights. The boats, empty soju bottles decorating your room like balls on a Christmas tree. The alarm clock, which already shows you woke up two hours late, is ringing with no intentions of stoppingMaybe it was confusion, the soju, just the AM in general, but I just sat there looking around the room. I had just been hit blindside. I went to bed sober, and woke up drunk. It didn’t matter, because when you are two hours late you just scrub your poophole, (What the!?-Ed) brush your teeth, wear anything that is clean-ish and jet to work.
I spent the whole day trying to understand what happened to me. I started learning a few things. I remembered there was an apple core and tons of egg shells in the sink, empty soju bottles, a plate that had salad on it at one point, and all my chicken was missing from my fridge. I thought someone would text me later saying they had fun. Maybe I just didn’t remember waking up and got so quick that I blacked out before waking up. But no messages, no emails, no phone calls.
If you don’t know what soju is, it’s a traditional Korean alcohol made from potatoes. This stuff sneaks up on you, similar to jell-o shots or maybe a wet stain in your pants when you thought you were pushing a dry ‘fluff’. Normally people are in a bar, and don’t leave soon enough before it sneaks in for the power punch and leaves them sleeping beside their friends at the bar. But this is ridiculous. Cousin to the Sock Monster that sneaks into your apartment and takes that one sock, the Soju Monster hit a game winner sometime between 10pm Tuesday and Wednesday two hours after I should have awoken…. Needles to say, I have changed the locks on my front door.
'Go on then, I'll stay for a couple.'