Bloody Hell, Who Farted?

I've been having a wonderful time teasing my girlfriend over the last week or two, because her Aunt's staying with her, and like all Aunts, she's making sure my girlfriend is behaving properly, and looking after Mr. ATM correctly.

Now, I don’t think I've mentioned this lady before. She married a Swiss guy 16 years ago, and went to live with him in Switzerland of course, and took her 10 year old with her. He is now of course 23! (That was how it was explained to me! I think it was the Thai / Swiss English conversion we had to do – numbers are not my girlfriend's strong point, nor anything to do with money, nor anything to do with getting up early, or being on time, nor hunting for bargains).

I think I’m going to digress now –

Why does my girlfriend allow me to get ripped off, and then tell me I should have paid 25% of the price I paid? That bloody annoys me. Its obviously a face thing, and she's protecting the Thai shop keeper, but if that's the case, why laugh at your boyfriend's stupidity, why not get involved, or simply not tell me. I’m happy with my bargain, I've always wanted a JUMBO Zippo lighter probably. It weighs about 3 kilos, and rips your trousers at the waist if you do any of those Zippo type tricks, but it’s very funny to watch, then you have to go hunting for a cheap pair of jeans, then the girlfriend laughs at me for paying too much, so I take my lighter out and rip my jeans a bit more – its very good sanuk.

So anyway, Aunts a wonderful girl, very happily married, and knows all about Farang / Thai bargirl relationships (they can work!) that nags my girlfriend about looking after me, in fact because this Aunt has made such a success of marrying a Farang (and yes she was a bargirl herself) my girlfriend looks up to her, but hates me talking to her about what she's been up to. Conversations go something like this.

Crying on the phone…..“I lose money play cards”

“Oh shit, how much did you lose this time”?

“I lose 10,000 baht”

“I don’t believe you, how much you really loose”

Pause….“I losing 12,000 baht, sorry I lie to you”

“I calling your Aunt, and she can talking to you. You stupid”

“Please not calling my Aunt, she angry to me”

“I not call your Aunt if you tell me truth, how much you losing”…Silence…

“Sorry, I loosing 20,000 baht” – lots of balling, and crying (Mine actually, she's got over it, I think she's shaking at this stage)

“I need to Pee Pee” (Me again)

“You knowing money I send you for China holiday, you can use that”

“But I not have money for shopping”

She, like Imelda Marcos – forget eating pad Thai, or bloody papaya salad, my girl buys shoes, that's her thing – she walks like a bloke because a bike accident smashed her knee up, and she wears high heels! (She is 100% woman – I've checked)

Can you imagine putting tiny little high heels on a bull dog, then putting the tightest little pair of jeans on it, and then a tiny T-Shirt that says “Your a naughty boy, go to my room” on it, good. Now cut the dog in half, keeping the head section, and front legs, then give it long hair, and that's my girl.

I think that exaggerates things a little, but she's bandy legged, and looks stupid in high heels. She doesn’t have saggy cheeks and the propensity to dribble all the time and bite people, but the resemblance is still good, ish.

So where was I?

Yes, “I not have money for shopping”

“You problem, not mine – go pay bill, and not do more, I calling your Aunt now” Hang up the phone quickly, and dial Aunt sharpish.

I feel smug now – shit is going to hit the fan, and this time NO WAY will she play cards again. I don’t think she’ll even gamble with matchsticks, let alone money.

I call the Aunt.

“Hi, how are you”

“Das is gut danka, ant yu” (I can’t write the thai Swiss thing, so please for give me, you shwine hoonds)

“I’m fine, you not believe what she do now”

“Oh noo, vaz”

“She finish 20,000 baht play cards”

“Oh sheeet”

She goes on to tell me that she used to play cards a lot, and many of the girls play cards a lot, and many of the girl’s lose money, but this is too much, and she will sort it out.

About 20 minutes later

“Why you talking my Aunt again, now she talking my family, and she talking she want me moving to old home my Family”

Ooooh, that wasn’t what I had in mind. Her family is completely dysfunctional. The Father is an alcoholic and beats mum up regularly, the mother got so sick of him she went off to be a lady monk (What do they call lady Monks in the Buddhist faith Stick, surely not a Nun?! Though she has a shaven head!)

One brother likes to shoot people, and the other brother sells T-Shirts in Patpong. (He’s
got to be the craziest of the lot) – then you have Aunts, and Uncles that shoot, fight, spit and slurp their noodles.

So, she and I have agreed she must not live there. I’d rather she was banging a bloke in Bangkok, than living with her family. Actually, that's bullshit. I don’t want her to do that, but living with her parents is no good for either of us.

So this goes on, backwards and forwards, but the point being, though she adores her Aunt, she hates the consequences of me talking with her.

The other problem for her is she cannot talk “Shit Thai” in front of her. So when I Fart down the phone at her (Its an affection thing. I tell her my bum wants to say hello, or goodbye) she cannot say anything. She’ll giggle, but that's all. When Aunts not there she’ll call me every Thai bad name under the sun. She likes it actually, she says she loves my childish behaviour, and the stupid things we do together – try it and let me know how you get on. Tell her your “Dood” (Bum) wants to talk to her when she's said something stupid – she’ll laugh like a drain.

The first time was an accident, I've never understood mobile phones well, and braking wind whilst mid conversation on my own, in my own apartment, I didn’t think could be heard. So I would regularly do that until one day she said to me – “That good one darling” and that was that!

Anyway, last night I asked her Aunt if she thought her niece was ready to get married. (I can talk about this in depth another time, but its kind of not funny!) I told her some of the things she’d been up to, but that clearly she was changing her ways, and I wanted to know if her niece was capable of monogamy and capable of living in a cooler climate and eating bread.

The Aunt said she thought she would need a couple of trips to England this year and next, but I wasn’t to marry her unless she could be with us.

I've not talked much about marriage with my girl knowing that she would have married me the day after we met, and now I've spoken the words my girl wants to know everything about what I talked about. Apparently the Aunt has been lecturing her on everything. How she will have to learn to save money for holidays, how she thought it was important to send money to the family, but she was only to agree to send one small amount every month, and not deviate from it, ever, even if someone is dying, because then the family will know they can ask again for more. The Aunt said she was not to have a big wedding, because the family would spend too much of the money we would need to live together. (The Aunt doesn’t know I have money, in fact nether does my girl)

The Aunt was brilliant to say the least. She told her how tough it would be to make friends, and how important it was to get on with my family, and told her that it could take her as long as 4 or 5 years to feel comfortable in England. (She didn’t mention the weather too much?? Surely that would be a big issue in Switzerland. Yes the summer is hot, but the bloody winter!!!! – I need to go there)

So this went on, and it’s not funny. What was funny was her sitting on the coach back to Bangkok today and telling me someone had farted on the coach. That in itself wasn’t very funny, but I have trained her to stand up in these situations, and say to everyone on the bus, as we would do in England – “Bloody hell, who’s farted”.

(Well we don’t do this in England, but as most people on her bus are not supposed to understand………)

So, she has done this many times. (She will never travel on a bus in England. We will walk rather than take a bus, even if I owned a bus company, she will not ever get on one) and it became second nature to her.

So picture the scene. She’s whispering to me on the phone about getting married, and her Aunt is sat up straight backed, staring out of the window, and she happens to mention that someone has just farted on the bus. So I say to her “you know what you have to do” and her 20-year-old niece, in high heels jumps up out of her seat and shouts “Bloody hell, who farted”. I was doubled up.

I could hear her Aunt hitting her; I could here the commotion on the bus from other people that had probably been asleep or dozing as it was early evening.

I was almost there, instead of 6000 miles away writing this thing.

Additionally, she couldn’t get angry with me. I just said – “I love you” and finished the phone.

Now, before you all go training your girls to do this, occasionally there’s a Farang on these buses that will turn around and look at her with a frown (Must be some humourless git – German?) and I’m certain she will at some point do this on one of those school buses, so its not for the faint hearted.

Just remember what my girl looks like, and you will see why she doesn’t get into trouble.

So, if you were on that bus today, and you saw a young girl being beaten up by her Aunt, because she shouted “Bloody hell who Farted” go and say hello, you’re a friend of the Director's. Maybe you’ll get one of her wonderful bulldog scowls, or maybe that lovely giggle of hers and that big smile that I adore.

Stickman's thoughts:

Ummm….