Minor motorbike mishap turns toenail turmoil
Trip Start
Dec 02, 2007
1
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangkok, Thailand
Friday, September 5, 2008
I sustained some lacerations to my right leg and unfortuneately also banged up my pretty big toe.
one month later... i noticed as I removing my red polish that my toenail was, well... not really attached to my toe. so I go in there with the manicure set and end up removing most of it. dee-sgust-ting. but actually pretty painless believe or not.
Being the girly girly I am but the "ok I can deal with it traveller" at the same time, I carry-on my day to day life minus a pedi. after six days of flip flops and dirty streets, (which are now flooded by the way up to my shins)
I decide I can no longer stand the sight of my nailess nub.
I venture to various nailbars in search of cover (they're r so so many in ban) but to no avail. or nail in this case.
I decide to upscale my search in hopes of finding some english speakers and I manage to get what I need at a celebrity nailbar located actually in the mall where I teach. and at the low cost of only $200 Bhat for 1 unpainted toenail. which on the streets of Ban would buy you 5 manicures, which totals 50 nails and painted to boot!
happily I leave unpolished but fully nailed.
I reach into my while in taxi transit and realize I had left my phone at the salon! In a panic I exclaim to the driver...Bpai (which means go in thai) Crystal (where I work) Bpai Crystal!!! Mai (no) phone!!! Mai Phone!!!
just another blank face as per usual when speaking any english here. so he drops me off at home and I run to our local "Family Mart" where cheap booze and cigarettes are a plenty to get some change to call the salon in hopes of catching them before close. I locate a apyphone a ways down the street and dial the number. Of COURSE its not that easy...its Thailand and I am an ignorant fur-rang.
starving a peeved I stopped on the way back to grab some street version pad-thai.
This is acheived by waiting for a local to order, then pointing and mustering out a Roo Ka (yes please)
Its now about...8:00pm or so and I head bak to a lil cafe near the FM and ask if they can help me make a call to try and organize a phone retreival. no answer. ok. fine. let the frustartion roll away, like melting butter on a steamy cob of peaches and cream corn...mmm...
I beam up eight floors in B1 and flop onto my bed in my 100 degree condo. flipping da AC switch I remebered I had some deicious padthai waiting to be devoured in my plastic travel bag. i flip it onto my delux Big C plastic dinner plate, rip open the sauce packets, sugar and peanuts. oh ya baby. the real deal! I chopsticl my first batch of noods and realize it wasn't peanuts i had plastered all over my din but CHILLI FLAKES!!! of crap. no fantasy cob of corn can save me now.
In a huff and padthai puff i slid the noods into the trash and....splat! I miss. as I grab the pasta between my fingers I reminisce about the good old days of eating spaghetti with my sauce covered hands in highchair. this is clearly not the same. same same but different. for all of you that are unfirmilar with this saying, it.s the most commonly used phrase over here on this side of the world. they have a whole line of clothing based around the idea in fact.
still stavring I walk back to my friendly Family Mart and purchase some creamy cookies to soothe my post chilli burn.
you know what? why the heck do they call them "chilly" peppers anyways? they're not chilly at all!
phoneless, bookless, TVless, webless and friendless...what to do...what to do.l..a I got it! laundry....ya.
doomed out of boredom unto the dom duties.
I head down to building C with my soiled drobes only to find all the machines are full and not only are they full but on a timer for 55 minutes!!! 4 cigs, 128 stars in th sky, 45 windows times 6 buildings....later I pop my bhats and swish swash goes the wash. staring at my new toenail i am alterted by something approaching in the darknesss...
oh my Buddah.....its a white boy! only the third one I've ever seen since arriving in Bangkok
Thank my lucky 128 stars, I'm not alone!
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