An Osaka department store's Fuckin Sale was one of the classic Engrish gaffes of our time. But the funny signs were quickly taken down after the internet freaked out about them.

According to a post last Saturday by the Japan expat blog Super Happy Awesome, the store, Gallerie, caught wind of the global snicker in the final days of the Fuckin Sale:

the sale is still on until Monday, but I spoke with the people from Gallerie earlier today (hurray, my Japanese is getting better!) and apparently they've decided to take down the fuckin' signs. They also apologized for any offense taken over their hilariously offensive sign.

Why apologize? Those signs brightened the days of countless miserable office workers here in the states.

Super Happy Awesome also discovered the real reason why there was a "fuckin sale" in the first place. Apparently fuckin is an unfortunate pun on fukubukuro—"lucky bags." It's a New Years tradition for Japanese retailers to put their overstock from last year into big grab bags and sell them at a discount. (We had hypothesized a foul-mouthed American chef brought fuckin to Japan's shores.)

Fear not: After the attention Gallerie earned from its gaffe, we can expect to see 100 Japanese "fuckin' sales" in January of 2013.