Grande Large

I bought a shirt from Costco but I felt it was kinda big so I was trying to look at the tag on the back to see if maybe I'd bought a size too big. Song was next to me and quickly pointed out, "It's grande large. That's why it's too big!"

A long, long time ago back when tigers smoked and I had hair, it was my first year in Korea. I had just landed in the country a few months prior knowing absolutely no Korean, aside from the word for 'grass' which somebody had told me was '풀' but even now I'm not really sure if that's the actual name for 'grass' as it's main meaning is 'glue' and usually people I think use '잔디' for grass but...well, anyways, I didn't know anything.

I was a good little 학생 though and studied a lot in my own free time and tried to meet with Koreans and learn about the culture (aka drink) and the language from them (aka go to 2차 with them, which just means more drinking). 

After one long night out, I came home and thought to myself, "Hmm...I could really go for some bacon, eggs, and potatoes in the morning." But, I didn't have potatoes so I walked up to the local 24 hour convenience store that kinda sold a bit of everything. I looked around a bit but they didn't have any potatoes, though I could've sworn that I'd seen some the last time I was there. 

I approached the lady who ran the store, a Korean lady in her 50s, and in the best Korean I could muster at the time, I said, "Do you have any namja?" (남자 있어요?) 

She tilted her head a bit and gave me a puzzled look. I was used to this as everyone's accent is atrocious when they first start learning Korean. I repeated the question. "Do you have any namja?" 

She replied back to me something that I didn't understand, but her puzzled expression seemed to indicate that she didn't understand what I was saying. I thought about what I was saying. 'Do you' = 'Do you'. Check. 'Have' = 'have'. Check. 'Namja = potatoes'. Check. Grammar order reversed? Check. (Korean tends to have things a bit reversed for English speakers.) 

Hmmm. I wondered if maybe I said the phrase slower and enunciated like I was talking to a very dim-witted senile old man who'd lost his hearing aids and relied on lip reading to communicate effectively. "Doooo yooooouuuuu haaaaavvvve annnnyyyy nnnnnnaaaaaaammmmmmmjjjjjjaaaaa?" I said. I tried to pronounce everything clearly while also trying to not sound like I thought she was mentally handicapped which was a hard balance to strike. 

She looked at me and gave a fairly affirmative yet questioning, "No?" I could tell she was confused, yet she'd said 'no' so I started to turn around when...AAAAAHHHHHDammmmmiiitttt!

I turn around again and changed the last word from 'namja' to 'gamja': "Sorry sorry sorry sorry....Do you have any gamja?" She showed me where the potatoes were right away as I tried to not die from embarrassment. 

There I was, at around 3 in morning, just a stone's throw away from a pretty big red light district, asking the owner of the convenience store repeatedly if she had any men. (namja = man, gamja = potato)

My students always get a kick out of that story when I tell it to them.