The Mere Sound of My Name Makes People Swear

The other day at lunchtime I dropped off my wool winter coat at the dry cleaners. Procrastinating, you say? Not really. Because you don't want to dry clean your winter stuff until it stops snowing, and around here? If you want to be safe, you'd darn well better wait until June.

So, this place is run by Koreans. And the gal who usually works the counter was pressing clothes, so this other dude came up to the counter to help me. And he started filling out the ticket, and he asked for my last name.

Now, my last name is a very common, six-letter last name. And I said it to him, and he turned around and said something to the girl in Korean. First he said my last name, and then evidently, he said, "how do you spell that?", because she said the first letter, said the second letter, and then snapped. She went off on this guy in a torrent of Korean, and I am guessing by the tone and the volume that lots of swearing was involved. Then she stomped off.

So the guy turns back to me, with a kind of resigned look on his face, like this happens all the time. And I spelled my last name for him, and he gave me my ticket, and I left.

I mean, WTF?! The only thing I can think of is that my last name (which, incidentally, is a very anglo last name, along the lines of "Smith" or "Jones") is actually a swear word in Korean. Like, maybe my name means something like "motherf**ker" in Korean, and she got two letters into spelling it out, realized what she was spelling, thought the dude was playing a trick on her, and got pissed off.

That's all I can come up with, anyway.

And if my name actually does mean "motherf**ker" in Korean, that's pretty funny.