Farang Too Strong

There's nothing like the thai people to make you feel like a giant. A big fat heavy giant. There's a chain of super stores here called Lotus. They're kinda like Target or Walmart for people who aren't obese. I love everything they have. None of it in my size.

For a long time I only had a fold out stool to sit on while writing my blog or surfing the net. Later I upgraded to one out of metal green folding chairs we have for outside. Apparently these are made of cold rolled metal. Which means the metal is not cast hot. It's shaped while cold. Which in turn means it can be reshaped while cold. Reshaped by the smoothness of our tile floor and the weight of a my fat ass. Ok, the weight of anyone not thai. One day I found myself gently sinking to the floor as the legs slowly slipped across the tile. Bending at the knees that were not there before.

I moved back to the stool for a few days, until parts of me started to fall asleep. Parts that you'd never ever want to fall asleep on you. Not the kind of tingling you're usually after. So off to Lotus I went again. Ready to buy the biggest, strongest, coolest chair I could find. What I found was a white plastic patio chair with arms. Seemed pretty good. Tried it on the floor and everything. Even fit squarely on the back of the scooter. Got it home. Plopped it down in front of my laptop. And "Squeeeee!" It slipped all over the place. The tile was too smooth for it. I quickly McGuyver'd something together to stop it. I took one of our door mattes and was barely able to slip a corner under each leg. That way when it pulled, the matte held it in place. This worked for quite a while. At least until the last few days when the strings of the matte started pulling apart.

Again it was time to get a new chair. None of these crappy weak-o chairs. I was on a mission to find a good solid wooden chair. Maybe something that even folded up. I recently heard of Baan Tawai, a small city about 12 km south of here near Hang Dong. Yes, Hang Dong. Walking thru shop after shop of thai furniture and handicrafts. I quickly forgot what I was looking. It reminded me a lot of driving all over Bali to find furniture with Bill a few years back. I saw a few things I liked, but wasn't going to buy anything until I got a good look around. Finally I saw something I liked which synchronized with the time I started to feel too hot too keep looking around, and went ahead and purchased a pretty nice teak folding chair for about $40. The girl there helped wrap it up and tie it to the back of my scooter too. Why not. It was a pretty easy drive down. When in Rome...



Anyhow, I'm now writing this from my new strong, no-slidin', really comfortable, teak folding chair.