An 8hr Trip to Hell and Back... Friday, April 12

It was a packed day of business dealings, construction work, and other prep work.  Our lights are all up and working so that was the big excitement at the boxing club today.  Unlike our packed day of goodies and smiles, the evening was quite the opposite.  It all started at 8pm, when I tried to convinced Snickers to go grocery shopping with me instead of going out to see a friend.  He was persistant on meeting his friend, saying that this friend wanted to help us out with our boxing club.  He didn't go into the details of how he'd be helping but that was partly my fault.  I was trying to convince him to just stay home.

8pm

As Snickers headed out the door to go meet a long-time-no-see friend, I reminded him we’d be going grocery shopping later. A couple of hours later I texted him and asked him when he’d be by to pick me up. "30 minutes” he texted. This ended up being the last I’d hear from him tonight.

10:50pm -- promise time

He never showed up.

11:30pm

When he didn’t show up 30mins later, I then waited outside for an extra twenty. I called him but got no reply. We’ve been so incredibly busy so the house was desperately lacking in food. I had to get to Emart but getting a taxi in Cheonan on a Friday night, ya good luck. Ended up sprinting to Emart in hiking boots.

11:50pm – 1st hour

12:30am

Arrived home and still no word from him so I started asking around, texting his friends.

12:50pm – 2nd hour

One of his friends dropped by to ask me more details.

I had overheard Snickers trying to get 4Man-C to join him tonight but when I called 4Man-C I had found out that he didn’t join up with him tonight because he didn’t know this particular out-of-town friend. So I had no idea of the friend’s name nor did I know where they had gone. I assumed they had gone out for dinner. Snickers said he was meeting up with the friend to talk about him helping our business, so I was also assuming there’d be drinking at this meal out.

I’m quite familiar with the whole Korean culture of mixing booze with business meals but if you ask me, considering we’re in the health and fitness industry it seems very controversial for us to be promoting health and fitness but deliberately indulging in something we know is bad for our bodies. Everything in moderation, sure, but when this is being pushed to us on a daily thing, that’s just borderline alcoholic. To me, it’s like a doctor that smokes, a dentist that doesn’t brush his teeth or a hair stylist with bad hair…. I could go on but I think you get my point. Anyways, so many of our business dealings are done over meals and so often those that join us for these business meetings try to push us to drink. I don’t drink and I see no point in trying to make a potential business contact by doing something I don’t do nor think is good for business. What Koreans think is simple business manner I find rude.  My body is like a walking advertisement for my business but so is my lifestyle. Moreover, at the rate we’re going with in regards to meetings, we’d be drunk like sailors if we said yes to every cup of beer or shot of soju that was pushed our way.  Apparently the word "alcholic" hasn't crossed the ocean and reached Korea because while they may think it's socially acceptable to offer me soju at noon, after a workout, or on any given day, I don't agree with it.  Moreover, I'm just not interested in trashing my liver for the sake of business. 

1:50am – 3rd hour

I was still pretty ticked at this point, assuming he had gotten drunk and totally disregarded our shopping date so I texted him a sarcastic “thank you” and noting that I was disappointed.

2:50am – 4th hour

Tried to distract myself by watching TV but it totally didn’t work so I ended up cleaning the entire house.

3:50am – 5th hour

Went for a walk with Pyen Chi but ended up roaming the streets downtown, looking for our van.

4:50am – 6th hour

Still no sign and by this time panic clicked in and I started to think the worst. He is bad at being late for things but he always calls or texts.  This was beyond strange. Called one of his friends and asked them if they had found him yet, they hadn’t. My panic was then joined by thinking of worst case scenarios.

There was definitely the fear that he had crashed. Was my previous angry text message the last thing he saw before he got hit? If he was in a crash, why wasn’t some paramedic or police officer at least answering him phone? I had called it like a zillion-billion times. And was I to go check the ditches or wait for someone to come knocking on my door to tell me the bad news?!

5:50am – 7th hour

Decided I had to let his family know, get them in on helping me find him, so I called his sisters. After I got off the phone with them, I then looked around the house for an updated printed picture of him; I needed it for the police. The workers for our boxing club would be showing up at 7:30am to work. Snickers had the key though so I figured I’d tell them to go home and then I’d go to the police station.

Then there was the idea of what to do with the boxing club if something serious had actually happened to him. I know insurance would clearly cover his medical bills – he’s beyond covered – but what if he had been killed?! The boxing club is OUR dream; I couldn’t do it without him nor would I want to. I thought about our dogs too and our house. I convinced myself that if something had happened to him, like death, I’d leave Korea. I've made a life here but it’s with him -- it's our life.

6:50am – 8th hour

I stood at the front door for about twenty minutes, trying to wrap my head around what I was about to do – tell the workers to go home, then report to the police. I had his picture in my pocket as well as a full description of what he looked like and the details of tonight.

I thought about how I may possibly be returning home as a widow.  I'd call my father to tell him the terrible news and that he wouldn’t need to come to Korea after all because I’ll be moving back to Canada. I thought about Snickers and our love story, how we’d be talked about as “the perfect couple” with the tragic ending. Friends and family would flood me with “I’m sorry” and looks of pity. I’d be wearing the same shoes as my father and it’d suck. He had forty-some years with the love of his life, my mom, his wife, but I only had four years with mine. It wasn’t fair.

It took me a long time to walk down the stairs and when I reached the bottom of them, I knelt over and puked a little. It wasn’t right. I was finally getting my chance to live my dream – our dream – and now it may very well had been taken so quickly from us. If only I had insisted he not go see that friend. He had asked me if I wanted to go but I didn’t; I should have.

Then I took three steps forward, out of the stairwell, and there to my right was our van parked but with its engine idling. Snickers was inside. I pounded on the window for him to open the door and when the door opened, I could see that he had been sleeping. He was hung-over.

In one breath I wanted to both kick him in the head and wrap my arms around him.

The short of the long story behind his outing was that this friend did the expected – pushed him to drink – but had gone too far with it and Snickers felt he couldn’t say no considering. I threatened Snickers about this friend, telling him that he’s officially blacklisted from our club. “If he trains at our club, I quit.” I know Snickers was to blame too for the situation but honestly it’s been very hard to continually say no to those helping us because they have been quite generous. I’m more stubborn than Snickers when it comes to sticking up for what I do and don’t agree with. While he gives them a soft no, I join his no with a long explanation about why I said no. Snickers says it makes people uncomfortable but I argue the fact that they push me makes me uncomfortable. Someone is going to be uncomfortable regardless.  It’s already an uncomfortable situation so I am quite comfortable with turning the table on them.

Snickers English lesson for the day:
"Grow some balls"-- refers to when you socially should, could and would say "yes" but don't want to becauseit goes against what you believe in or stand for.