wretched homeless loon

This is a special post. It's my 10th this month. I haven't cracked double digit posts in a month since way back in December of '08. To put that in perspective, that was 2 months after the Phillies won the World Series. I'll pause for a round of applause now...

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Thank you.

I like to do some cooking at home. Nothing extravagant, just some meat and a couple of vegetables. Tonight after work I went to a grocery store to load up.

I have a few options when it comes to grocery stores in my area. There's one just behind my school, and another a little up the street from it. Those two are good enough, but by the time I get to them at 9:30 or so at night, they can be a bit bare. Every once in a while I get up enough ambition to go another, larger one that's a little bit further away. It's always a bit of a hassle to go there, because it means I'll have to lug all my groceries about a kilometer back to my apartment. Plus, grocery store clerks here are stingy when it comes to handing out grocery bags, so I typically have to carry all my groceries in one bag, which can be tiresome.

 This larger store is always loaded, and it's got a few things that can be hard to come by. Things like cans of Campbell's soup, and baked beans. Those things are expensive, too. I bought a can of baked beans and a can of clam chowder tonight and they ran me damn near 10,000 won. But hey, sometimes you just got to treat yourself to some beans and franks.

After I finished shopping I headed to the checkout line. This is always a bit stressful for me, because as I've noted in the past, anytime there's a line here people are on top of you. I usually try to time it right so that nobody will be behind me, but tonight as soon as I got in line about half a dozen people got in after me. So everyone is on top of me, which bothers me because I think of them looking at what I'm buying, and judging me, the foreigner, accordingly. I imagine them caustically mumbling to each other, Ugh, lousy foreigner, buying baked beans and a six pack of beer.  It's nerve-racking.

To make matters worse, just as the lady starts ringing me up, what can only be described as a wretched, homeless loon walks up to the counter. As has happened before, and not always necessarily by wretched homeless loons, he cuts in front of me and forces his purchases onto the checkout lady. For once though I'm not angry about it, rather I encourage the lady to take care of him first, for you see I'm terrified of him because he's a wretched homeless loon who is mumbling incoherently.

She rings his stuff up, which was a bottle of soju, some squid jerky, and a six pack of beer, and while she does this it occurs to me that this wretched homeless loon has the manners and etiquette which are par for the course in Korea. By that I mean I've had all sorts of people do exactly what he did, which was cut in front of a massive line of people. In fact, the same thing happened just a few days earlier. My girlfriend were in line to buy some food on Sunday when a couple of ordinary guys casually stepped in front of us to buy some Ramen. It must be nice for a wretched homeless loon to do something so boorish and not have to feel awkward about it, even though they probably wouldn't anyway. So congratulations Korea on having demeanor tantamount to that of a wretched homeless loon.

Oh, and the aforementioned wretched homeless loon was buying the same six back of beer that I was. Hite Dry Finish. It's by far the best beer this country churns out. I kinda wanted to give him a wink and a smile to acknowledge his good taste, but, you know, I didn't.