Get The Fuck Out Of My Dojo

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

And after like three seconds, where we’re all trying to figure out the punchline because the story clearly hadn’t ended, and John Mulaney quietly says, “Has there been tinfoil on my buttons the whole goddamn show?”

She was, in fact, with him, and she did tell him her date’s name. John Mulaney considered this, looked around, and unplugged his microphone. Leaning in to us, he told us that we were going to trick this guy so fuckin hard. He said, “At some point during the show, I am going to stop and say, ‘Well, you guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale,’ and then you guys are all going to scream back ‘WE LOVE MILKSHAKES!’ He’ll be so confused.”

He then continued on with the show as normal, the drinks guy returned to his seat, and that was that for quite a long time. We thought he had forgotten about it until, at some point during what I believe was his McDonald’s drive-thru bit, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale…”

They were usually run by someone who was about the right age to be some adult’s parents or grandparents, and in the case of the two Korean restaurants matching this description, they didn’t speak English. Universally though, they were very pleased to see customers, very proud of their cooking, and very very interested in keeping us far away from the aforementioned serious men in nice clothes. And despite having huge dining rooms and never having more than a couple customers, they never went out of business.

Also, because I am very, very stupid and sometimes don’t think before I talk, I once said loudly, over the phone, while sitting in one of these places, “Hey! Yeah if you want to meet us, we’re eating at [place]. You know…[place]? You totally know it. The Front, on Warwick st!”

They started stocking my favorites because I mentioned them within hearing range once, would tell their “vendors” to move out of the way if we stopped in. I walked a different route home and got harassed one night and they asked after me. When they found out what happened, they declared “Consider it taken care of, you should never be afraid around here.” Never happened again.

One of the older men at the party took me to my neighborhood and dropped me off out front (the car was literally too big to fit down the small neighborhood streets) and said that I had his blessing.

Which was confusing, but I was drunk, so whatever. Then I went back to the restaurant about a week later and the mother said, “the family approves of you. You may marry our son if you wish and be welcomed.”

I did not marry him, but wow. There were no hard feelings, either. They still helped out if I got harassed by the cops (which happened a lot in these smaller towns with no foreigners) or anything like that.

So no one really questioned the motives of this large Korean family that moved to town and had a martial arts studio built.  I mean, maybe we should have, since no one ever moves there, but we didn’t. (Or maybe we did, but I was eight so idk)

Anyway, the kids’ class had about a dozen of us, which was a lot for any sort of organized extracurricular, ranging from my brother at five to me at eight.

It was great.  Hapkido was a lot of fun, and the older man who ran it made sure we had a class at least once a month or so where we learned self defense well enough that we’d actually be able to apply it if the need ever came up.  Occasionally his “friends from Korea” would come to “visit him” and they would guest teach a class.

By the time I was thirteen, I had made my way through quite a few belt levels, and he gave me a part time job helping teach the new under five class.  A few of them had joined the volunteer fire department, the moms helped with bake sales at the elementary school, my sister was really good friends with the daughter that was her age, and they were all a pretty big part of the community.

Until one day when we’re in class.  At this point, I was still in the kids’ class, despite an offer to be moved up to the adults’ one, because I’d finally managed to convince some of my friends to join and they were in the kids’ class.

So, picture this.  An older-boarding-on-elder Korean man teaching martial arts to a dozen or so kids.  Parents sitting in the adjoining room, watching through the one way glass and gossiping over tea.  The door slams open, and a half dozen police officers come in, guns out and yelling.

We all dropped to the floor, freaking out, because nothing like this happens ever.  One time, my neighbours got high and lit their car on fire and drove it into a ditch, and the fire fighters had to wait around for three hours before the police finally showed up, that’s how much they hate having to drive out to our town from one of the near-ish cities.

But here they were, interrupting our class.

And the teacher?  He booked it out the back door as soon as they entered.

Turns out the studio was a front to smuggle drugs from Korea.

I was only thirteen so nobody really wanted to give me all the details and it may have been 2010, but the elementary school was still the only place with internet, so I couldn’t even look it up.

From what I remember, though, the police caught the hapkido teacher pretty quickly.  I’m not sure if they got everyone from the family or not, but I do remember that one of his friends was supposed to be visiting and teaching a class later in the week, so I’m pretty confident they caught him too.  I’m pretty sure they were some sort of mafia, because I remember overhearing a conversation between my parents about the amount of paperwork and meetings my dad had to do to convince the higher ups that he had no idea he was letting mafia members into his fire hall.

I also had to go to a couple of interviews with the police since, technically, I worked for them.  It didn’t take them long to see that I was just a nerdy little thirteen year old, and that there was no way I was actually involved in this mafia.  I got some serious street cred, though, and when I started grade eight in the neighbouring city that fall, I got a lot of questions about what it was like to be in a mafia.

I still don’t know how the police caught onto them, or why it took them five years.  I definitely would have kept my job at the studio through high school if they hadn’t been arrested (it was infinitely better than working as a cashier at the tiny grocery store), and I sometimes wonder how much that would have gotten me mixed up in their real business over time.

everybody: [remains seated and eyes each other suspiciously]

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