every now and again one lives through an experience that needs to be told to be others. it then needs to be told and retold again each time increasing in specific (usually false) detail that enhance both the humour and interest factor of the experience. generally the experience is not life threatening nor groundbreaking - just out of the ordinary. have you an experience like this recently? no? allow me to share mine.... on a typical wet season afternoon, the time of the year that the rains seem to be running on a strict Singaporean timetable, i had a dinner appointment with a women's service club. this in itself is frightening - am i old enough to consider joining a service club? just so that i don't embarrass anyone who might read this wonderful piece of art i will not mention the name of the club, i'll just say that it's like rotary for women (rich bored women with big hair that would hold strong in a gale). the taxi driver refused to take us directly to the dinner which was both inconvenient and rude, stating that the traffic was far too out of control to consider going that distance, so we clambered out of the cab in the rain, in our skirts and heels up the stairs of the heaving skytrain. it turns out that the taxi driver had been right all along, some poor (yet typical thai) water management decisions had meant that the main strip of bangkok was starting to flood and the street we needed to walk down was knee deep in dark, foul smelling, nappy infested, sludgy klong water. feeling undeterred by the stench we powered on. at times I had to hitch my skirt to unfathomable heights in order to prevent the stench leeching on to the expensive fabric of my 30 dollar target outfit. despite the wading we were most certainly the lucky ones - the people stuck in their BMW's and Mercedes' unwilling to open the door for fear of major water damage were in for a long night. the traffic was going nowhere. and i mean nowhere. they would have been lucky to move a centimetre in an hour.... i think i preferred swimming with the dead fish and klong eels to the night they had in store for them... relatively unscathed, i say relatively because gill ended up with klong sludge on her boob, reminiscent of a newborn babies skid marks. with a quick scoot to the loo for some last minute clean up efforts (pam and i washed our feet clean of the rapidly evolving bacterial infections we would have picked up on our adventure) we were ready to enter the meeting. if only i was more prepared..... the sheer excitement of our arrival is hard to communicate - pure joy on the faces of these women who were all so delicately attired in 100% pure thai silks suits, with heavy gold weighing down their fingers and big bouffy hair helping the empty room feel occupied. i quickly assumed my formal name of andrea, there clearly was no room for ange at this event ( i wonder how mad dog molony would have gone down!?) and like jack on that fateful virgin journey of the titanic (according to hollywood) i mingled with the riches like i belonged. it wasn't long before i had signed up as a home and garden tour guide - no doubt i will need a hair appointment beforehand to bouffafy my hair!
being at the hilton, there was an interesting array of cutlery to choose from. working from the outside in i ended up with what appeared to be a butter knife to eat my salmon parcel. looking around the tables for help only to see that being late meant that everyone else had finished first course and left no evidence of which knife they used. gill, in typical aussie style, swallowed (and lost) all pride and asked the rich woman in the thai silk suit with the bouffant hair do.... feeling quite foolish yet not letting on, gill accepted the down the nose answer "why it's a fish knife darling" - we ate in silence for a while.
after dinner the celebrations began and we were fortunate to be witness to a club induction. in traditional service club style the induction began with a detailed biography of Martha (uniformly dressed in a thai silk suit, opting on this occassion for a breast high skirt which was captivating). Certificates and name tags were handed over and pinned on breasts and tears could be seen behind 4 inch layers of orange make up. the most moving moment of all was without doubt the pledge to service, commitment and honour. even though we weren't members we were welcomed to join in and i, personally, found it absolutely hysterical! like a grade 4 student who just farted and blamed it on the teacher i almost lost all control. i had two choices - laugh out load or let the energy of laughter escape as tears. the second was the more mature of the two options and so the tears of joy flowed and flowed. pam was no help at all, perhaps in a more difficult place than me, she really struggled to get back to the maturity expected of a woman at these meetings.... somehow i don't think it was supposed to be funny.
