A quick note on how life can be stranger than fiction… and I’m back to lambasting bushy-bearded man.

An e-mail from my British expat friend included a most intriguing: "I have something interesting to tell you when you return about why [bushy-bearded man] feels uncomfortable around you which is really funny!!"

I'll readily admit that I was on pins and needles to know what she meant. He had asked me at least 5 times in the space of 2 days when I was leaving and he was the only one to care that I had originally planned to leave Bangkok on Wednesday and I instead departed on Thursday. And seriously. I had never been rude to him although perhaps he could sense my waves of antipathy re: that damn TV. Upon the reading of my friend's e-mail, I speculated that he had overheard our group of breakfasters talking about him in an unfavorable light (a favorite past-time, a bit like therapy), or that he hates all Americans (he definitely dislikes GW Bush) or that he was offended by the short jeans and tight tee that I decently yet not terribly modestly wandered around W House in. But the story was pettier than that.

Apparently not an hour after I had departed for Chang Mai, bushy-bearded man was in the W House café confessing to the horrible truth to another CELTA friend and later to my ex-pat friend (two different times). “You know that red-headed woman, Laura? You are kind-a friendly with her, right? Well, I feel just terrible because I can barely look at her. She is ‘dead-ringer’ for a lady in my parish that had an extremely hurtful personality.” (Did I mention that the man used to be a pastor?) He went on to confess that this hateful lady used to make trouble for him and even worse, could’ve had a crush on him. (Huh?). Apparently, this lady was obnoxious to the point that she’d complain about the hymns that he selected for services. Eventually he had the janitor select the hymns instead… and then he blamed the janitor when the lady complained. Nice.

When my friend recounted this at Vertigo, I laughed. Hard.

A few days later, the darned man pulled up a chair next to the table where my ex-pat friend and I were eating, directly facing her and in such a way to physically exclude me. Again, I say: he pulled up to the table where my friend and I were eating, without invite and completely excluded me. He proceeded to talk to her about teaching and this mentally ill man that he was helping… all the while excluding me. So I pulled faces at my friend from behind his shoulder. At the very end of the conversation, he turned to me and said “well, I’m not going to ask when you are leaving this time as you got annoyed the last time I asked.” I gave him my most insincere smile and politely protested that he had asked me at least 5 times when I was leaving and tartly informed him that this time I didn’t have a fixed departure. He soon pulled himself and the chair away and continued on his way.

Every time I saw him afterwards, I was tempted to sing. You know, I’ve always like Handel’s hallelujah chorus: Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

-Crazy Girl

PS: The proper objects to worship at Wat Pho – today’s pic.