This one time...

Badass to the bone

I was about five or six years old. We were living in an apartment in Seoul. It was one of two twin buildings facing each other with a big parking lot in between and a playground at each entrance. They were tall, I daresay twenty or thirty floors...or maybe that was my skewed memory of having been so short as a child and everything seemed larger than life.

Both my parents worked full time. It was just me and my grandma at home and on some afternoons, she would take naps on the living room couch. On this one particular afternoon, I was watching TV on the ground in front of her, but then I wanted to go play with dolls at a friends house because I didn't have my own - but that's a story for another day

I did not want to disturb her. More importantly, I refused to chance having her tell me no, I could not go. I would do everything to not risk not getting what I wanted. Purposefully, I whispered into her ear that I was going to go to my friend's apartment across the way to play. She barely stirred but I recorded her half asleep mutters as permission and quietly snuck out.

I was about an hour into Barbie makeovers and fairy princess dresses when, from outside the apartment windows, I could hear my grandmother screaming my name. When I ran to look outside, she was marching slowly with her hands behind her waist, one fist holding the other. Walking from one end of the parking lot to the other and then back again while screaming my name at both buildings, she was the picture of terrifying discipline. I dropped everything and ran out to her because you don't keep a woman like that waiting. With a strong grip on my shoulder, she yelled at me all the way up to our apartment.

I would like to say I learned from the experience but this would be the first of many times I snuck out from her supervision to play. Each unauthorized outing yielded the same result.