Splenetic

“Korean Businessmen at Fish Market”- Manga Panel style

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Splenetic- marked by malevolence, anger, or spite

Ex: You want to know why I’ve been so splenetic recently? Do you really want to know? Remember how I was on that business trip to Seattle with some big wigs from the Korea branch last week? Of course you do. That was only last week, and we are in a committed relationship in this short fictional essay. Anyways, when in Seattle, you hit Pike Place Fish Market. Just as when you’re in Rome, you barter with a gypsy for some scratch offs outside the Coliseum, or whatever the saying is. As I’m sure you’re well aware, the fish market has a famous tradition in which the fish monger grips a massive fish and launches it torpedo style through the air towards a customer. Said customer is expected to catch the fish effortlessly, as if it were a tennis ball. The Koreans wanted me to have a turn catching the fish.

Bear in mind this was primetime, the market was absolutely crowded. It was a Saturday morning, and all the local restaurateurs were out foraging for fresh, locally caught Pacific delicacies. So when the ponytailed fish man in the Seahawks flat-brim reared back and fired the ballistic salmon missile towards me, the crowd was waiting with baited breath for the only acceptable outcome: a catch. Well, let me tell you what they did not see that fateful morning. Yea, you guessed it: a catch.

Not only did that greasy salmon go right through my fucking hands, but in one calamitous motion it slammed into my gut, knocked the wind out of me, and the force was enough to drop my 36/30 boot cut Dockers to the ground, revealing, ironically, a pair of salmon colored tighty whities with a little piss stain caused by the impact. The crowd burst into raucous laughter. The Korean big wigs were laughing hardest of all. They slapped each other on their backs as tears streamed down their faces. I was there to convince them to relocate production of our flat screen monitors to Seoul. They couldn’t take me seriously as a businessman, or even just a man really, after the fish incident. They referred to me as peepee salmon boy for the rest of the trip. Suffice it to say a deal was not reached that weekend, unless you count the deal I made with the Korean devil to avenge my fish market misfortune by unleashing the monster from Bong Joon Ho’s The Host into the waterways surrounding their families’ homes.