Death Gift

When I got back to school Monday morning, the Korean social studies teacher that sits across from me handed me a gift wrapped in shiny gold paper. She doesn't speak any English really, but my co-teacher told me how the woman's mother had died during the month I was away. And apparently it's considered good luck to give out gifts when someone in your family dies. The same goes for when something terribly good happens to a family member. Before I left last month I was always getting rice cakes and shit when someone's kid got accepted to a university or bought their first car. It's a great tradition. I'd kind of forgotten about the gift, but last night I was laying around watching a movie (which is pretty much all I've done since I've been back - I think I can blame it on jetlag until Friday) and I was thinking about how cool it would be if I had some cookies to eat. So I open the dead mother present assuming there'd be some delicious snacks under that beautiful gold wrapping paper only to find no cookies and three tubes of "anti-calculus" toothpaste.