NOTE: I posted this a while back, but it wasn’t published until a few days ago. The “today” mentioned is at least several weeks back.

Lime and I were waiting for a cab today, and this twerp came after us, looked at us, and then positioned himself to catch anything that would be coming our way. When a cab pulled up, Lime hollered “Yaaa!” (Hey!) to him, to remind him we’d been waiting first. The word’s not the most polite thing, but on the scale of impoliteness it’s not anywhere near as bad as nabbing someone else’s cab.

The bastard looked straight at us, opened the cab door, and got in, looking at us as the cab began to pass. Lime was hollering something at the window, and flipped off the bastard. Now, I would have expected him to just accept it and let the cab drive off, but he actually opened the cab door, and make a face as if he was going to get out and “teach her a lesson”. She was hollering, he was muttering, and I took one step and asked him whether he wanted to die — of course in Korean. He started to say something, and I really didn’t want him to get the idea that he could get out of the cab and stay in one piece, so I yelled, “You fucking sonofabitch!” at him, again in Korean, in my harshest sounding, I’ll-kill-you,-you-little-pencilneck voice.

You know what he yelled? “Puck you!” Hahaha. Yeah, Puck me, Mr. Young Ajeoshi Cab Poacher. That cuss word has absolutely effectiveness if you cannot pronounce the first letter, take it from me, shitwit. Lime hollered back, “Fuck YOU!”

It was at that moment that my linguistic barrier hit me in the face. I was thinking, as he began to close the door, “Yeah, go home and f*ck your mom in the a**!”, or “Get lost you babyfaced motherf*cker! Go wear your cheap little suit somewhere else!” But I cannot generate equivalent sentences (or even transliterated phrases) in Korean with any degree of force, or at any speed. Forced with a choice between yelling, “Fuck you!” at him again in Korean, or flipping him the bird, I hovered, indecisive, and before it struck me to compliment him on his English — I can do that in Korean — he slammed the door and rode his poached taxicab off into the night.

So I guess this is my sign from the universe that it’s time to get back to studying again. That way maybe next time some twerp steals my taxi I’ll be able to give him what-for.

UPDATE (13 Jan 2006): I’ve started studying again, slowly and not ardently enough, but here’s hoping the project picks up steam as it goes on.

And by the way: I know I need a holiday.