"Go get one, okay?"

Today I went hiking with my girlfriend Heidi, and I was recounting a funny little conversation that occurred two weeks ago:

My mom and I were driving down to Manhattan beach on a little Saturday excursion to REI when all of a sudden -

**riiiiing! riiiiing!**
"Hello? Ahhh! Ahn-young ha-shum me-ka goh-mo...!"

It was my grandmother from New York calling my mother. She lives in Harrisburg, PA now, but for as long as I could remember, and with the handful of times that I have actually laid eyes on her, she has always lived in New York. Hence, my long term reference whenever talking about her has been "You mean, Grandma-from-New-York?" It had been quite a while since we had heard from her, and I hadn't seen her since I had last visited New York just before graduating from college - about 6 years ago. My mom and grandmother continued to enthusiastically carry on their conversation in Korean, when all of a sudden, she took the phone pressed up against her ear and thrust it into my hand.

"Here! It's Auntie! Talk to her and say hi!"
I stared in horror and last minute confusion at the phone and shook my head no.
"Talk to her! Say hi to Auntie!"
**sigh**
"Hello, Auntie...?"
"No, no! She's your grandmother!" Oops. Oh yeah - I forgot. It'd been a long time, okay?
"Uh, whoops. Hi Grandma! How are you?" I responded in a cheerful and mildly sheepish manner.
"I'm good! How are you? Do you have boyfriend?"

Ok, let me stop right here. I don't know about you, but in my family, there are 2 comments that my relatives usually utter after having not seen me for a long period of time:
1) "You've lost/gained weight!"
2) "Do you have boyfriend?" *
I don't know if this is just a Korean thing, or if families all across America are like this, but I'm so used to this by now that these questions never seem to phase me anymore. Depending on the day, I usually either find it amusing or irritating. Today, Grandma just cut to the chase - she was, after all, paying for a long distance call to California, and she certainly wasn't going to waste those minutes on formalities.

Back to story:
"Nope. Not right now I'm not!" I responded in a cheerful manner, yet feeling very aware of not responding in a way that the person in the driver's seat would know what Grandma was asking me over the phone.
"Well, go get one, okay? Go get one!" she replied.
As incredibly funny as her response was, what made it funnier to me was that I suddenly felt like a motivational coach was giving me a pep talk. I really had to bite my tongue to keep from responding "Okay, Grandma! Let me go home and grab my credit card so I can run out and buy one at the store! I'll make you proud!"
Instead, my only bland response was, "Okay, Grandma! I will! Thank you." With that, we chit chat about a few more things, then I quickly handed off the phone.

Oh, I so love these times! And living in glorious Los Angeles to boot. I wouldn't trade these times for anything else in the world. Well, except for maybe... ^_^


*please note the lack of the article 'a', since in the korean language words such as 'the' and 'a' do not exist. hence, when you hear a korean person with a heavy accent speaking english and they omit these articles, it is because they are not accustomed to this.