Today could have been a bad day. Considering I’m leaving in a few days to hit the airport, it could have been a bad week.

This afternoon, some guy with a wireless gadget came around and plugged in the license plate numbers on my car. He quickly found out I hadn’t paid my taxes on the car for 2007. Why not? I don’t actually own it. I do, but the girl I bought it from got it from her former boyfriend before he left the country and I bought it from her before she left the country. There is an owner, but he’s not coming back to Korea. Ever. That’s why it was so cheap.

That’s also why I didn’t get any indication I owed any taxes. They kept sending the bill to some New Zealanders former address. So, when the tax man plugged in my license and found unpaid taxes, he just took the plates.

Young Sook, the school owner’s sister and headmaster took charge and took care of everything. He she not done so, I most likely would have just driven off not even realizing I had no plates. I might have found the pink slip they left on the windshield, but by the time I left work it would have been covered in what now is the first snow of the year. A nice wet, slushy one, too. It would have been illegible, for sure.  Instead Shelley (Young Sook’s English name) went out and grabbed the pink slip, starting making phone calls found out what the deal was and began working deals. Within an hour she had already transferred funds from her account to pay the taxes and had the mobile tax agent bring back and reinstall the plates. I’ll pay her back, of course, but the pain-in-the-ass she saved me was worth multiple times that amount.

This family has always gone the extra mile for me. From finding extra work in the form of private lessons I can bill to building an extra room for MyeongHee’s son to warding off evil tax men, they take great care of me.  I can’t imagine a better set of people to work for.