Grandpa Comes For A Visit – A Ghostly Tale – Part 5
Mr. Toad sat with me a while and helped me contemplate the universe; Thai women and their fiery chili eating habits, Tuk-tuk's and their universal appeal, until you've ridden in one, the vivid ugly colors applied to concrete tables and chairs found throughout the land, public hong nam's without toilet paper, nor paper towels with which to dry your hands after washing them, and other earth shattering, mind boggling, mystical, puzzling subjects one tends to ponder when their mind is finally free to roam willy-nilly after a hard day's work, while sitting on your butt, relaxing.
He's good company is Mr. Toad, never interrupting much one's train of thought, content to just squat and ruminate quietly with me, when there are no dogs or cats about. I prefer his company to some of the more incessantly talkative of human-kind. We rarely argue. When he speaks I tend to listen. I know how difficult this is for him. I appreciate his input and sage advice.
He once told me that cats are a useless vicious lot, prone to slow torture of their victims for the sheer pleasure of it all, and violent for no damned good reason toward most creatures, even when well fed, and the scourge of his people. I guess he had had an unpleasant run-in with Sis Mun's cat from next door that morning. I had to agree for the most part with him, adding only that they, cats, felines, were good to have around if you had problems with mice and rats. To which he told me that many many centuries ago my kind had also hated them, cats, when we were the prey for their malicious tortures, when they were much larger than us, and almost as numerous. He also wondered why we no longer caught and ate the mice and rats ourselves, as we used to all that long time ago. I told him it was just so much easier to go buy some hamburg down to the market than to run around trying to catch rats and mice to feed on now-a-days, which got him ranting a bit about carnivores, until he spotted a nearby juicy bumbling cricket, which made him salivate and start his own bit of stalking.
Sometimes he can be a bit hypocritical in his views.
This night he just sat meditating there with me, until finally some foolish wandering insect brought his attentions to his stomach, and he hopped off. I continued to watch the thunder storm race toward the village.
I considered getting a beer from the fridge, but was too tired and sore to move really. My wife wasn't within easy hailing distance either. She'll usually, happily, bring me a brew when I request one, when I'm too lazy, or tired and sore, to go and get one myself. Rather unlike my first wife, who would rant on about her not being my mother, nor my slave, and to get off my lazy ass and get one myself. Hmmmm, how about doing it just out of love darling? Or expediency? You're up in the kitchen near the fridge, I'm not, and the game's on. I'd do the same for you, without bitching and moaning. I would dammit! No problem. It's one reason she's gone and I have a new wife. This new one is much more pleasant and agreeable, better in bed too, and always smiling, instead of scowling. I think I'll keep her for the present, as long as she'll have me.
I'm loathe to bring her to the states really. My daughter, nieces, and sisters are dying to get their hands on her, to explain their twisted and distorted feminist views for her education, and my detriment, of course, cursed male that I am. Evil jealous creatures they are, wanting to cause me trouble by getting my lovely lass to join their nasty cult of male bashing hags. Over my dead body!! I'm avoiding this cultural edification of my wife by the western harpies as much as possible. I'd hate to have to break in a new Thai wife. I like this one, and am getting too old to repeat the process once again. There will be visits to the states, but I'll never have her live there with me for any long period of time, and will never leave her alone for any length of time with the "liberated" women of my family. Besides, she loves being in Thailand with her own family and foods and culture, as do I.
They, the western radical women, seem to want all us men to be miserable, castrated, (unless they desire a child) puppets, dancing on strings to their un-natural beliefs on the newer ideas on male/female relationships.
Let the younger guys put up with their brain-washing bullshit if they want to. Some of us older guys remember how it used to be, how women actually liked us, loved us, respected us, hell, even wanted a "man" for a husband, instead of some snivelling toady afraid of his woman's shadow. They don't want to be equals, they want to be the boss. Fuck that! It's all amazonian lesbo man-hating bullshit. Now these same western women actually bemoan the lack of manly men over here in the USA. It's the topic of many a women's magazine article now, or on all the female TV talk shows. Friggin' Oprah, Sally, and such. Silly twats! You reap what you sow honey. Yeah, keep listening to Rosie O'Donnell and her ilk, you foolish women.
My brothers are much the same as me, but when I tell them about the wonderful woman I now love they look at me in disbelief, or with a film of jealousy clouding their eyes. They must do battle on a daily basis to hold the throne of male leadership in their homes, and can't possibly remain un-infected, unaffected, and unweakened, by the daily onslaught to their homely kingship by the evil feminist rebel forces propaganda, which radiates its destructive poisons from every form of media in western existence, electronic and print. The castle wall is breached, they fight with drawbridge up, in the keep, their sons with them in battle, but whom of them can they trust now, which one has been infected, to turn on him and eat his brains like a zombie when the chance arises. Our poor, poor, sons and grandsons. What have we left them for a legacy? What have we allowed be done to our hale and hardy sex?!!
While I was pondering these and other random chauvinistic thoughts the rains finally started for the evening. My wife and Sis ran over from Sis Mun's shop, where they had been sitting chattering away with the other lasses, and helping make yet another lethal version of Papaya Bok Bok for their thrice daily intake of freshly pounded chilies, guaranteed to make even Lucifer scream in agony, if he was foolish enough to partake of this so-called local delicacy. I no longer try to prove my manliness by indulging in this nuclear waste of a dish. I've learned only too well the scorching absurdity of its cleansing burning rush through my bowels of a morning. I have yet to meet a Thai woman complaining of haemorrhoids. I believe this to be their secret in avoiding such infirmities.
My wife ran onto the veranda laughing, trying to avoid the now pouring waters from another, the latest, angel keg party. She stomped about shaking the rain from her now glistening arms, and came giggling up to me to spray me with the droplets in her dew-dropped sparkling hair. Her brilliant smile once again reminding me what originally had attracted me to her, besides her beautiful full long ebony hair, and sweet round tush. My heart skipped a beat in her shining, smiling, radiant presence as she bent over to favor me with a quick unbidden smooch, and a quick concerned query as to what I'd like to eat for dinner this evening. I'd kill for this woman! All she has to do is point to who she would like me to slay, and I'll gladly rip their heart out with my teeth if need be!
I tell her what I desire for nourishment, asking her to hold the chili down to a reasonable level for her poor farang husband, please, and off she goes, still smiling broadly, to see to my needs. I struggle mightily and get my groaning ass out of the chair on the veranda, and hobble inside through the house to the kitchen out back. I love sitting around the table reading the papers, or a book, with a drink of one potency or another in hand most times, while the women putter around the campfire preparing a meal. Watching them do their womanly chores relaxes and calms me to no end. It soothes my soul, and lets me know that everything is right in the world, my world anyway.
The universe is in order. My drawbridge can remain down for now. The enemy is not here yet, though it pays to be vigilant, so as not to be caught off guard.
Plus I can watch my lady bending over and admire her gorgeous ass from time to time, sexist pig that I am, and they feed me morsels and pamper me outrageously most times. I try to stay out from underfoot though, and never give advice on how to cook something, unless asked. Ya gotta play it smart.
I grabbed another iced tea on my way through the house, and as I sat at the table I saw another toad hop in through the grating surrounding my open kitchen. Or maybe it was Mr. Toad himself. Hard to tell really. He, or she, I have no idea how to distinguish the sex of toads really, sat in the corner and occasionally blinked its golden eye at me.
Goosebumps ran down my spine for some reason under the toad's unwavering reptilian gaze, and I remembered my old Irish grandmother's saying, whenever she got a chill, "Someone just stepped on my grave." Which always gives me another chill.
These superstitious Isaan Thais have nothing on my Irish grannies! I was raised on ghost stories, tales of banshees, and the devil comin' to steal your new born soul, (He knowing that one day you'd become a priest and do great things in God's name!) banging on the flimsy wooden door to the Irish country hilltop cottage, leaving burnt goat hoof prints on the outside of the door and the lingering smell of sulphur and brimstone in the dark of a winter's night, and trying to climb down the fireplace chimney when he wasn't let in, until young great great uncle so and so, (actually Michael was his name I think) the one who became a priest and was later eaten while a missionary by cannibals on some godforsaken island, took the family shotgun and fired it up the chimney to drive 'ol Satan away from the God-fearing innocent souls within.
Gawd, I loved hearing those grand old stories while sitting on Grandma's knee when a wee lad. Scared the livin' shit out of me they did. Gave me nightmares for years! Haha!
(to be continued)
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"Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman."
William Shakespeare,
King Lear
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"To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom."
John Milton,
Paradise Lost
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Stickman's thoughts:
Sitting on gradnma's knee…I miss her, but I don't miss that!
