Dear Sir or Madam

With friends like these…

Dear Roommates,

Bear in mind this is probably the most important day in my life up to this point. I am standing in front of the department heads of Biology, after 4 years in college, presenting what are undoubtedly paltry, stupid undergraduate research results. Also present are my “peers” to whom, judging from THEIR presentations and general demeanor, higher education was but a amusing distraction in their life goals of winning Nobel prizes, discovering the cure to cancer, ending world hunger, etc.

The point I am trying to get across is this: I am nervous.

So, I thought it’d be a good idea to get some moral support in the room - make this a slightly more pliable crowd. I thought it would be a great idea to have you clowns show up and pretend to listen attentively while I tried to ignore the terror of having my work be scrutinized by intimidating, heartless geniuses. Luckily, I had your number in this regard:

“…so if you could just show up to my defense, it’d be great.”

“This sounds incredibly boring.”

“There’s free food.”

“What time?”

So I stood up there, preparing my slides and bracing myself for the (inevitable) grilling I was going to get. Professor Quintans, head of undergraduate Biology (by all accounts, a ruthless straight-shooter with an accent that bore an unsettling resemblance to Don Karnage’s) was staring a hole straight through me - I suspected he could sense fear like a dog. I was busy trying not to pee my pants, my hands shaking like a drunk in step 4 of 12.

Then you guys stride in. In full costume.

God, your shit-eating grins piss me off. All of you, walking in with a festive air like you were about to eat some funnel cakes and drop a clown in the dunktank at the fair. Is that… is that my fucking LAB COAT? Fake glasses? A CLIPBOARD? Apparently you raided my closet in order to destroy me. 

God, you’re sitting RIGHT NEXT TO QUINTANS. 

This is clearly a lost cause at this point, and I’ll just get through this as fast as possible. I go through my data in a defeated sort of way, while you nudge Quintans with your elbow and gesture to some imagined point of interest on my slides. “Nodding sagely” is apparently something you’ve practiced in the mirror a lot for just such an occasion. The presentation’s pretty much over by the time I’m getting mad at you.

It is a bit of a shock when the questions I get afterwards aren’t the sort of lambasting criticisms I expected. They LOVE my presentation. And I actually got a comment about how I didn’t look nervous AT ALL. Apoplectic rage does that, I guess.

There’s a palpable sense of relief that washes over me as you guys sneak out of the auditorium before the questions are done. This is in order to stuff Ethiopean chicken into pockets lined with Ziploc bags and disappear into the night before anyone realizes that you’re not actually faculty. I’m sure later, when I’m soaked in gin, I’ll be listening to you motherfuckers screech on, “you should have SEEN the look at your face!” 

Sadly, you saved me today. Thanks a lot assholes.

Hoon, Anxious Performer

Cellular Telephones

Dear Sony Ericsson T300,

I was a bit late in joining the cellphone party. Up till I graduated from college, I was still dialing long distance on those phone cards that one used to buy from Walmart or Rite Aid (these cards are now only available in places like Mexico). I did this all from payphones, which even back then only the homeless were using. I lived in constant fear of ear syphilis.

So when I happened to sign up for service with AT&T wireless and was given a shiny new cellphone like you, I was pretty excited. No more trudging to the convenience store at odd hours to use the payphone! No more strange ear-itching after a long conversation with the parents! No more entering interminable access codes read from a faded phone card! What a surprise to me, then, that you had some limitations.

As far as I can tell, you only worked in two locations:

1) The middle of Washington Park (by day, a popular jogging locale. By night, a popular getting-assaulted locale)

2) The top of the then-still-under-construction Ellis St. parking garage.

So instead of walking to the local Dunkin Donuts, I would sneak into a construction area and climb to the top to use up some of them Anytime Minutes. Haha, just kidding, I could only afford a Anytime Minute. All of this hijinx only took place after 9 pm. Granted, I probably would’ve poked around the construction site late at night anyway (as I routinely make poor decisions re: safety), but the whole point of getting you was the convenience aspect; risking life, limb, and discovery by law enforcements tended to be quite a bit less convenient than buying a donut and coffee to go with my phonecall.

Still, I was proud of you. I’d be all showing you off to my friends, who would roll their eyes and go back to talking on their phones, which worked, which they had been taking for granted for years, which they would replace every year as technology and fashion dictated. Of course today, I am one of those people. But I will never forget my days with you, T300, for our time was one of a magical, slightly dangerous, and questionably legal nature. I hope you have found a good home with the sucker I sold you to on eBay.

Telephonically Inexperienced,

Jaehoon

Melamine

Dear Hello Pandas,

You are the most delicious poisonous snack items ever. Every component is faker than a pair of porno boobs, but each spurious item combines to produce just the right combination of chocolate and biscuit to make me ignore the fact that eating a lot of you will probably kill me.

Also you have delightful pandas drawn on the outside (with what kind of ink is unclear but I bet it’s toxic too).

My friends know of my special love for panda-based snack items so they give me boxes and boxes of you. Some of them do this because they are unaware that you are a plastic inserted into food items for the express purpose of fooling tests designed to determine the nutritiousness of foods. Others secretly want me dead. There may or may not be a third group that openly want me dead, but they have a lot of options available to them, and slow death via Panda Crackers seem pretty roundabout (especially when they have methods such as “Stabbing to Death While Sleeping” and “Vehicular Homicide” at their disposal).

You should not feel bad. You are above moral reprehension because you are an inanimate snack item and not a human being. We hold you to a slightly different moral framework.

All I can do is to very carefully meter my consumption of you to stave off certain death. It is not easy. It’s very hard not to eat a whole bag of you in a single sitting. It’s actually hard not to eat multiple bags of you in a single sitting. My longevity rests on a knife’s edge for this very reason.

Also, I need to stop writing letters to food items, because speaking in the second person about eating things is getting kind of creepy.

Jaehoon, Sweet-toothed

Conditioning the Air

Dear Air-Conditioning Unit in Statistics Classroom,

We are not rare animals imported from Antarctica. There is no need to refrigerate the room to freezing temperatures because we are not Emperor Penguins. I do not hold a singular egg underneath my belly fold, incubating it over a course of 4 months in order to protect my fragile young.

I also do not live on the North Pole. I certainly am not a Polar Bear that hibernates over the dark winter, during which time I lose over 40% of my bodyweight while nursing my baby cubs (I’ve been watching a lot of Planet Earth lately). I do not subsist on a diet of seals.

I am beginning to regret my decision to leave my comforter behind at home.

It is 80 degrees outside, and everyone in this room is wearing a heavy coat because you are doing your job a little TOO well. You are like one of those kids in school who, when assigned a short book report, return with a 80-page deconstruction of Ulysses. Sure, the teacher may fawn over you and maybe you will even get extra credit, but we all know that’s social suicide. Nobody likes an overachiever, A/C unit.

It is very cold. Please become warmer.

Jaehoon, Frigid

Can you control your shit?

Dear Truck Driving on the I-5 with Shit Falling Off the Back,

Can you, I dunno, not do that? Between the CONSTANT STREAM of little rocks that seem to be tumbling off your bumper and the loose two-by-fours that clatter gaily across your truckbed, you are making everyone on the road very, very nervous. I am also very curious. Because where are those rocks coming from, man?

There’s like an endless stream. Off the bumper. It doesn’t make any logical sense.

Nevermind, I’m back to being terrified - that board almost slid off again; I can visualize the damn thing tumbling off the road, bouncing at precisely the angle necessary to enter my windshield and decapitate me, like crappy Michael Bay CG. I know it can’t happen, because windshields are durable motherfuckers made of laminated, tempered glass and some indestructible plastic (probably manufactured by Lucite, Inc.), but I don’t need shit flying at me on the highway. TIE YOUR SHIT DOWN. Christ.

There is also the problem of me changing lanes to avoid your rocks, but then you change to the EXACT SAME LANE for some reason. It’s like you’re doing this on purpose. Like I’m playing a very demented game of Space Invaders, where the little bug aliens shit out deadly projectiles at me, no matter what quantized, horizontal postion I switch to.

I noted that, miles later, after I had fallen far behind your fucking truck, traffic became terribly slow. I eventually saw that this was because there were a bunch of boards in the middle of the road. Goddammit.

Jaehoon, Motorist

Well, it’s not slow…

Dear Fast Food Restaurants, Let’s rewind 15 years, back when I was a wee lad and our family wasn’t so well off. Okay, we were poor. We lived in a dank basement apartment in the shitty part of Spokane. Just kidding! It was all shitty. But we had cold winters and baseboard heaters (bad combo), and sometimes, our apartment would flood when the sprinklers came on. My dad worked nightshift at a convenience store and we had to pick his ass up every day, and ramen was a disproportionately large wedge in a pie chart labeled, “meals.” Even moreso than when I was in college!

Surprisingly a good life though.

Treats back then were simpler. The occasional Hot Wheel, G. I. Joe, Lego set. And once a month, we’d go out to eat. Nothing fancy, just a tour of Ronald McDonaldland, standing audience in the court of the Burger King, or being dinner guest to The Colonel. You were awesome, all of you. Nowadays, you are marginally (very marginally) less glamorous. Availability has improved. If I want a Sourdough Jack I just walk in the fuckin Jack in the Crack (I can go to bed any time I want now too. Suck it). So yeah, some of the magic is gone. Still, I bite into a KFC hotwing and I remember all of it again. Hanging out with Dad when he woke up around 6 pm, mom cracking an egg into the ramen, and how AWESOME it was when I got a new Lego helicopter. So when my friends scoff at you, the proletarian restaurants of the working class, I become indignant. How. Dare. You. Sir?

Jaehoon, The Hamburglar

The Betrayer

Dear Brain,

You fucking traitor. Treasonous, seditious, duplicitous son of a bitch. Are you working for me, or are you working against me, huh asshole? Are you going to keep fucking things up so the rest of the body has to stay up all night correcting your fucking mistakes? Eh? You like it when poor Arms and Eyes have to stay up all night because you weren’t pulling your weight, you twat?

Poor Foot is broken, he’s on worker’s comp, but he still put in overtime hours tonight to meet the deadlines. What were YOU fucking doing? Oh right, nothing. You sat around like a lazy sack of shit.

You fucking worthless cunt.

Fucking douche-nozzle. Shit-eating, cock-sucking, testicle-gargling, punk BITCH.

You better pray that you shape up before your performance review. This is a tough-ass economy, you know, and the first bitches to get thrown out on the the street are the pricks who think they’re too good for their fucking job. What, you think you’re hot shit, cockstain? You think you’re special, just because you form the basis of my psyche, my personality, and my cognition? You think you’re indispensable because you house my memories, are the epicenter of all sensation and action, and because you are the arbiter of my agency?

Fuck you, man.

I swear to god, you keep this shit up and there will be reprisals. Horrifying, life-altering, retributions. I will find a knitting needle and so help me god I will stab you through my own ear. I will drink so hard that my organs will merely be buoys, floating around in a sea of gin. I will huff so much goddamn paint that, years later, any of your remaining neurons will cry out for war crimes tribunals at The Hague for my wanton act of GENOCIDE.

Don’t fucking try me.

I also wanted to work in the words “fucktarded,” “piss-shitter,” and “trick-ass mark” in there somewhere, but for the life of me couldn’t THINK of a good way. More amateur-hour bullshit from you, eh brain?

Jaehoon, Mental Challenger (now THAT works on a few levels)

Questions and Comments Unwelcome

Dear People that Comment About My Broken Foot,

I can pretty much divide you into three broad categories:

1) People that ask me how I broke my foot:

You guys are always pretty curious about how I came to break my foot. If you are male, you will invariably ask, “did you break it doing something awesome/badass?” Then I invariably have to explain I broke it kicking someone, and that is (invariably) judged to be suitably interesting.

Also, everyone winces when I get to the part of the story when my foot actually makes contact with Other Guy’s elbow/knee/head (I don’t even know what I hit, so I tell the story exactly like that, with the slashes). Considering I don’t even remember the precise moment it happened myself, I must unconsciously add a lot of florid, grotesque (and ultimately, fabricated) detail to elicit a reaction like that

2) People that ask me if they can help:

You are usually quite nice, asking if you can carry something or hold a door open or whatever. You also get mad at other people that are NOT helping me out, such as my actual friends who stand there laughing at me while I struggle to climb up a set of stairs. Sometimes you go overboard, like if I stumble a little bit and the person next to me doesn’t notice. Then you scream at that person from your car as you’re driving by, so that he/she feels worthless for the rest of the day.

That brings a smile to my face.

3) People that ask me if I broke my foot “kicking my wife”:

I guess this is what goes through your head:

“There is a man on crutches. Clearly he injured himself while committing domestic violence.”

Is this you? If so, I’d like to take a quick time-out to let you know that it is deeply disturbing when you follow up that thought with:

“Next time, punch her in the mouth if she starts trippin!”

My reaction to your demographic: unease.

Anyway, I’d like to take this time to thank all of you; Groups 1, 2, and even creepy Group 3. You really have shown me that strangers do care (sometimes a little too deeply), which gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

I look forward to the day when I get this fucking cast off and I never have to talk to any of you again.

Jaehoon, Cripple.

Slumlords

Dear RCMI Property Management,

Actually, this apartment that you are renting to us isn’t half-bad. Compared to some of the shitholes I used to live in (see: raccoons), this is a magical, wondrous castle. Still, like all buildings, problems crop up from time to time. So what good fortune that I was given this number to call when things go wrong.

Just kidding, this is the part of the letter where I knock down what I just set up:

One day, HILARIOUSLY, our drains began to back up. ALL of them. So, with my bathtub filling up with what was pretty much raw sewage, I frantically dialed your Mysterious Emergency Contact, hopeful that I could call down some help before there was any…  overflow. This is what happened during round one:

“Hi, I’m calling abou-“

“Thees nahmber for EE-MAIR-GEN-CEE *click*”

I guess I didn’t get my subject line out fast enough…? I should’ve known better than to waste the Emergency Man’s precious time with petty contrivances like salutations, or nouns. I resolved to be more on-point for my second call:

“This IS an emergency and-“

“FYUCK YOU! *click*”

…and so began an awful night of looking up the numbers of 24-hour plumbers and learning that, according to landlord-tenant laws, I can’t legally call people to come do any work on the apartment without express approval of the landlord. Oops. So I called our landlords, RCMI, but as it turns out THAT number leads to what is (I’m assuming) an empty office building with a single rotary phone on the floor.

It rings and rings, but no one ever answers. That is how they roll, I guess.

We were fortunate, in that the bathtub stopped filling up, and did not runneth over with human filth. We were still Net Unfortunate though, because we still had a bathtub full of excrement. After quarantining both bathrooms and nervously listening for more drain-backing-up sounds, we all left to take showers at my roommate’s sister’s place. Then we hoped that maybe someone would pickup the goddamned phone in the morning.

And someone did! 2 mornings later.

Since then, I suppose they boosted their customer service with the hire of “Bobby,” who is just the most adorable little stoner-musician-part-time-apartment manager I’ve ever seen! However, I am confident that he will be worthless in a crisis situation such as the one just mentioned, and that you, RCMI, will continue to fuck me most untenderly for the remainder of my stay in your festering, putrid holdings.

Shit, I don’t have a witty one-off to sign off with.

Jaehoon, Tenant

Is this really a hospital…?

Dear Brotman Medical Center,

Maybe it was my fault for cutting myself open when you guys were going bankrupt. It certainly could be that you guys had seen better days and I just showed up when you had the hospital equivalent of the mumps. You can understand why I would THINK that, because when I went to you for medical attention, I didn’t go to a hospital so much as a 5-ring circus. Ok fine, there were no bears. So there’s one in the “pros” column.

Let’s start with the wait. It was the emptiest emergency room I had ever been to. Yes, this might seem like a good thing, because everyone knows that you get triaged in an emergency room, it could be hours before you see anyone. However, it’s a little disconcerting when you are the ONLY one in the waiting room, and your only company is apparently a drug addict and a cop, the latter who kept telling the nurse staff, “do NOT let this man out of your sight.” Reassuring. And despite the fact that I was bleeding onto the floor, and the other guy seemed to be just fine, I still had to wait 2 hours. Triaging doesn’t work this way! If there is no one ahead of me, then I should get to go in, right? Unless you already considered me a lost cause and were just waiting for me to die.

…I suppose that might not be inaccurate, given the state of things.

Things weren’t much better once I got inside. They removed the towel that was holding bits of my leg together and the pooled blood poured out onto the table, which was kind of awesome. Then you just left my leg uncovered for the better part of an hour, while I nervously eyed my vital fluids slowly but steadily pulsing out of my leg. I am no doctor, but I do know that blood needs to stay in the inside of the body to perform its integral actions. That’s just science.

Then the nurse came by, who:

1) Was half in uniform, wearing a baby-T in lieu of a scrub top

2) Had the biggest fake boobs I had ever seen

Then, she leaned over me, and said (I shit you not), “Ooooh. That’s a big one.”

“Your cut, I mean,” she grinned. Guess what Brotman: PORN HOSPITALS DO NOT INSPIRE CONFIDENCE.

Surprisingly though, the doctor did do a decent job on the stitches.

Jaehoon, Patient.