Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes Part 174

HOW MUCH CAN YOU BE IN LOVE?

How much can you be in love? Well, you are not really in love until you are doing stupid things–often publicly. You are sending your teeruk money she doesn't deserve. You are sending too much money and you know better and you
are doing it anyway. You are in love. You are constantly showing her picture to office mates and family and friends. They are not really interested or even very nice about it. You keep showing them her picture anyway. You know they are laughing
at you and saying uncharitable things about her but you don't care. You are in love. You buy her and her family gifts that are unappreciated. You know they are unappreciated. You don't care. Tomorrow you are going to buy her another
gift.

Am I in love? Consider what I have been doing with a South Pattaya boardwalk whore named Fa for years. Fa hangs out near Soi 13/0 on the boardwalk. My hotel is the AA Hotel on Soi 13/0. It is a walk across the street. But I never take Fa
to the AA Hotel. Instead I take her every morning to a second hotel room I rent at the Right Spot Hotel way down past Soi 16 at the end of Walking Street. Why do I do this?

Well, consider this. To get to the Right Spot Hotel every morning we have to:

1. Cross Beach Road together to get a baht bus. This entails standing on the curb waiting for a break in the traffic. Me and her. Together. Then we cross. A little adventure. Together.

2. Then we have to stand together and flag down a baht bus. Together. I get to look at her. We get in the bus together and sit next to one another. As the bus goes down the Beach Road in the early morning sun I can see the ocean and I can
see Fa next to me and I can feel her hip. I am so excited to be with this woman I am about to burst. She always looks fabulous. Just beautiful. I always tell her she looks beautiful and she always thanks me.

3. Then at the end of Beach Road where it meets Walking Street we have to get off the bus and walk to the moto taxis at the head of Walking Street. She gets on first and then I get on behind her. I jam up tight behind her and put my arms
around her, or I put my hands on her hips, or I lean in close and put my hands on the tops of her thighs. I can smell her hair, and I can look down and see her legs and her hips and her feet and her shoes. It is a miracle that tears of happiness
do not just burst from my eyes. The moto taxi has a long trip down to the Right Spot hotel. I wish it would go on forever. There sitting behind her I am as happy as it is possible to be.

4. Then there is some yelling and hand gesturing as I direct the driver into the alley and then down to the parking lot in front of the bungalows. Fa and I get off together. I pay the driver and then Fa and I go into the room.

So . . . have you figured it out? Have you figured out why I do all of this instead of just walking across the street to the AA Hotel on Soi 13/0? Sure you have. It's because I get to be with her longer. I want to be with her. Longer.
I want our time together to go on forever. Me and my Fa. Sometimes I fantasize buying a condo in Jomtien or on the promontory near the end of the maritime park in South Pattaya just because it would take us longer to get there. Am I in love? I
don't care what you think.

I love Fa.

I LIKE TO EAT

I'm on the flight from Narita to Bangkok. There are no thru flights after Bangkok so everyone on this plane is deplaning in Bangkok. That means the guy sitting next to me is going to Bangkok. He's a guy, I'm a guy; maybe we'll
talk. It's a long flight. Since we are both guys and we are both going to Bangkok we might have something in common. So I start the proceedings. But it's slow going. This guy is not exactly Mr. Conversation. I'm not sitting next
to one of Einstein's grandchildren. But I push ahead. There must be some story here.

It turns out there is a story. He is on the way to Bangkok for the very first time to meet and marry a woman he met on the Internet. Holy mackeral fish lovers–it is so big a story that it is almost a conversation stopper. Especially
taking into account the fact that this guy is a slob. He's a young stupid big sloppy fat guy who looks like he got dressed for this trip to his betrothed by putting on whatever he found on the floor of his truck. Lots of truck talk. He ploughs
snow in the winter and he does 'odd jobs' in the rest of the year and he "does all right". Has a house. I'll bet he does. I can picture the single naked bulb hanging in the kitchen over the thirty year old linoleum floor
now. A woman's dream.

"How well do you know her?" I ask.

"Well, we have done a lot of emailing, and letter writing, and web-caming."

No other details are forthcoming. He does not have a picture of her. And if I don't prime this fat sloppy stupid pump no verbal water is going to come out. He is dumb. When I ask what his special interests are he says, "I like to
eat." His fondness for the activity of eating gets repeated more than once during our conversation. Out of all of the world's possibilities he defines himself to strangers by saying, "I like to eat".

"This is quite a serious thing to be doing in life and quite a big adventure" I say tremulously.

"Yes, well sometimes you just have to take risks and do things" he says with the same tone of voice I might imagine him using when deciding to buy new lug nuts for his truck out of a catalogue of auto parts.

So he is on his way to meet a woman that he talked about marriage with; and he has no passion, and no pictures, and no gifts, and no new clothes, and no stories of her wonderfulness, and no dreams of the future that include the both of them,
and apparently no comb. I fall asleep and forget him

I completely forget him but then later as I am standing in the taxi line at Don Muang I am startled to see him again. A sedan has pulled up and a woman has gotten out and she is hugging him. Another family member is grabbing at his bags.
The woman who is hugging him has the big smile and the hopeful eyes of someone who has looked at his face and his figure on the webcam and apparently said something positive to herself. She looks wonderful. Really wonderful. I silently and respectfully
wish for her nothing but a happy future. He looks like a tired, stupid, disoriented slob.

I wish them both luck. And I hope he gets something to eat.

Stickman's thoughts:

A picture of Fa would really have made this submission.