Silent movie

May 23, 2007

I had a fight with an old lady yesterday and we clashed without words. At least nothing I could understand anyway.

And before you pull up your skirts and pummel me with your umbrellas, listen. Hear me my cause, as Mark Anthony would say. Here's what happened:

I took a bus from my hotel in Phra Kanong towards the skytrain going to downtown Bangkok. The bus was supposed to have been airconditioned but let's just say that its prime was when Jose Rizal was still in shorts and playing with his uncircumcised Simon. So I was sitting beside this old lady who appears to be sleeping. I was really perspiring because of the midday heat. No, make that soaked.

I looked up and the two nozzles from the aircon was angled towards her. Those were supposed to be for two people right? So I reached up and rotated one of the nozzles towards me. It's still hot but thank God for small mercies. After about 10 seconds she opened her eyes to see one of the nozzles off tangent to her own skewed point of view; to my surprise she reached out and shifted my end of the nozzle back to her and went back to sleep. WTF!?!   

It was like a bad silent movie because we did the dance without words. I reached up again and of course, old lady or not, take back what's mine. She looked up and reached up again. Before doing that however, she tsked me like it was my fault. Whoa! It's on! We're out of the silent movie and fast forward many years past technicolor to dolby surround where the words fuck and shit from two-bit actors' mouths are more the rule than the exception. 

So I reached up again and told her, "ayaw lagi soloha ang aircon, ka laog ba nimo oi (don't be so selfish and hog all the airconditioner)." Did she back down? No. She instead reached up again and recited a long litany in Thai. I guess it must have translated to "fucking tourists."

I yielded and let her have all the aircon. I noticed however that she forgot where she was sitting — between the wall of the bus and myself. I was looking forward while my peripheral vision was on her. I knew it was her time to disembark when she started fixing herself up. The next bus stop I could see was about 10 meters away. So I pretended to sleep, leaning forward to the seat facing me to block her way.

She was tapping me desperately, the bus stop I guessed was about five meters away.  I looked at her and asked: "Unsa man? Wa ko kasabot nimo. Unsa imo ginasulti, binisaya ra gud beh (What? I don't understand what you're saying. Can you please speak to me in visayan)."

Oops. There goes her bus stop.

She stood up after me and rung the bell. She was really irate I could tell by the way she was speaking loudly on the bus attracting the attention of everybody else. I deliberately reached up real slow — so she could see what I was doing — to the aircon nozzle above me. I closed my eyes and could still her shrill voice. 

Ah, music to my ears.