The Democrats are coming to Bangkok!

The Democrats are coming to Bangkok and I have been chosen to give them the tour! I'm not sure why they are here but it's for some sort of publicity tour. After they arrive we take them down to the river for a boat tour of the Bangkok canals. They each have their own entourages so we split up into two boats. Obama and Hillary are in my boat and in the other boat are the press and John Edwards. Well we ride through the canals and arrive at the famous snake farm. As we pull up to the dock we see a hoard of press who have gathered on the bank. As the tour guide I am told that I need to make a statement. So I dismount and approach the microphones and cameras. I clear my throat and prepare to deliver the joke I have been planning in my head. "Ladies and gentlemen, I had a nice boat ride over here with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. We had a chance to talk about the current presidential race and let me tell you, I'm pretty sure Mr. Obama is still 'undecided.'" The media laughs and I finish up. "Thank you all very much, that's all for now." So I begin leading the group into the Snake Farm. And that's when I realize my error! Oh no, I was suppossed to say that John Edwards was undecided, not Obama! Why would Obama be undecided? He's leading the race! The joke was suppossed to be that Edwards is the candidate in distant third place so the main two candidates are vying for his support. But I blew the punchline! Not only that but for the joke to work I would have had to be on Edwards boat! As I play back my press conference in my head I realize how foolish I must have looked!

You can’t keep a good Double O agent down!

Three double O agents are stealthily trying to enter a room. Myself, the black guy from Casino Royal and Jessica Biel. We enter the room under the cover of darkness but suddenly the lights come on and we are surrounded by enemy agents!! We begin flipping, spinning and diving around the room firing at them with our hand guns while they unload their fully automatic machine guns! When the smoke clears all three agents are alive and well and the bodies of the fallen enemy agents blink and disappear (like in old video games.) We have successfully cleared the room. Just then TV’s Steven Weber emerges from behind a box doing the slow clap thing. “Congratulations, you have just emptied your magazines on 30 heavily armed…. Holograms!” Just then the door opens behind us and the real 30 armed agents enter the room wearing full swat gear. We drop our empty side arms in defeat as Weber laughs in a self congratulatory way. The other agents and I slowly make eye contact and blink in agreement. “Now!” we yell as we engage the enemy in hand to hand combat. They didn’t count on the fact that their large numbers and this cramped room renders their weapons useless.

Snake Breeding?!?

I’m over at the Overholt’s house at their 4 new puppies are running around with a Cobra in their midst! “What?!? Why is there a snake in there with the puppies?!?” I ask. “It’s ok!” I’m told. “We are trying to get to them breed with the snake because we want a pet mongoose!”

Snake Bite!

I’m in Bang Sak with Trevor and Kory and we decide to go to Khoa Lak. So we start heading that way but we keep stopping at various places that have accumulated water to swim. Drainage ditches, rivers, ponds, etc.. Just before arriving in Khao Lak we see a row of brand new houses. “Wow, those are new!” we note. About that time we notice a ditch with some water in it that has a layer of moss on the surface. For some reason we all jump in even as we are saying to each other how unsafe it is and how there might be snakes. Just then a snake jumps out and bites me on the neck and face! Instantly I can’t breath very well so I ask the guys to go get some help. Pretty soon a man walks up calmly with his wife and starts putting some sort of medicine on my face and neck. At this point I realize that I can breathe normally again. “Me Pen Ha Mai?” I ask. He responds to tell me, no, I’ll be ok, it won’t be a problem. So I get up and follow him back to his shop to say thank you. A European man is apparently working there and he just hands me three receipts! The first two are for 481.50 baht each and the third one is for 37 baht totaling 1000 baht! So then I look up and realize that his shop is called “Snake Rescue!” So I try to talk to the European but he does not understand English! He keeps trying to explain something using a toy snake. Frustrated I walk past him to the thai man and I ask him “Ani pen allay khrup?” (what is this for?) and he responds “Ani pen yaa, leew ani pen service charge” (this is for the medicine and this is the service charge.) “And the third one?” I ask. He points to a picture on the receipt that shows a man building a fire. “But you didn’t even build a fire!” I argue. So he excuses the 37 baht charge. So I pay and Trevor asks “wanna go to a hospital?” To which I respond “Nah, lets go see a movie!”

Explanation: After writing this out I can identify several different real life situations I have encountered that apparently my brain has morphed into one event. My dealings with the European in this story are similar to a restaurant we visited in Khao Lak over Christmas, The Happy Lagoon. A European man works there for some reason and he is never any help! My dealings with the Thai man and the confusion with the receipts appear to come from a situation that occurred when I put my car in the shop recently. A $15 oil change visit turned into $240 in repairs and then I found out later he never got around to actually changing the oil! And finally, my swim with the snakes probably comes from many treks into the jungle with Trevor and Kory to find abandoned resorts, island lookout points, vines for climbing rocks, etc.. The brain is a funny thing.