Ace on the River

'Goddamn you half-Japanese girls. Do it to my every time'.
- El Scorcho, Weezer

In 2004, my wife and I were married. Living in Seoul at the time, I was unimpressed, hell abhorred, by the quality of weddings put forward at the Temples of Cheese that the Koreans call Wedding Halls. In the proper context, I like lasers and smoke machines as much as the next guy, but under no circumstances did I envisage my wedding looking like a porno version of Tron. Well, not since I was 11 anyway.

After much consultation, the missus and I agreed that we would opt for a traditional Korean wedding (largely my idea). Then we ended up opting for the premium version of the traditional wedding (largely her idea). Anyway, if you want to read about my wedding, you can do that on my long deserted solo blog.

Following the ceremony, the wife, our parents and me partook in an intimate little ritual known as 폐백 (pae-baek). For the uninitiated it's a quaint little ceremony, in which my family accepted the missus into, well, my family. Because we opted not to classify my wife as a chattel, we invited her family too.

The ceremony itself consisted of bowing (as if there was not enough fucking bowing at the wedding proper), the drinking of liquor, some more ducks, I assume some bribes were exchanged and I also had to parade around the room with my wife on my back. As we were both wearing silk, this was obviously meant to reflect the vertebrae shattering experience that is matrimony.

One of the final traditions involved my parents throwing a handful of chestnuts and dates into part of my bride's silk wedding clothes. The theory is that the dates/chestnuts represent boys/girls. The number of dates and chestnuts caught in the silk by the couple is said to reflect how many boys or girls the couple will have. A cute tradition, to be sure, but also one with ominous implications. I mean, as if my parents hadn't impacted enough on my genetic make up, now they were going to gender assign my kids.

And then they threw.

"Four girls!" my sister-in-law immediately clapped in glee. There were blackholesun smiles all round. Our families began to chatter about how good looking these girls would be and how they couldn't wait for us to get to, well, fucking. Unwittingly winding my wife's biological clock tighter than a swiss fertility enthusiast.

Now, my wife is beautiful, and I can swing an iron, so genetically speaking, I was staring down the barrel of four gorgeous little women. Half-girls/half-amazing. Great for the family, but to me it was looking like the worst case scenario.

See, having been raised as a Catholic, I'm a firm believer in comeuppance. It was no surprise to me when those four queens lay silently on that silk. Four girls as retribution for all the girls I'd loved and left before. Four girls for all the kimochi ever logged (both online and off). Four girls for all the wrong shit I had ever done to the fairer sex.

Payback is a mother, fucker.

When I found out the missus was pregnant, my first thought, post-elation of course, was 'how the fuck am I going to create a fortress of solitude to keep the onslaught of little Mordorian cocks from defiling my brood?'. What wont I say or do to these little faggots when they walk into my house, as I shake their ammonia-smelling hands while they smile their little shit-eating panty-grabbing grins and call me "Mr Hughes". I know these little fucks, because I was one.

Papas don't let your babies grow up to be K-girls.

By the time for the 20-week ultrasound came, I had blueprints sketched out in my mind. I was going to buy a shotgun. I would build a moat, full of crocodiles, sharks, lions, tigers and bears. Oh my. I resolved to commence civil suits and institute intervention orders against any man that walked my lawn. I'd have him dead. His family, dead. His house burned to the ground.

And then the ultrasound lady said... 'And there's the penis'.