3:40 p.m. - Thursday, Apr. 10, 2003
Ms Leslie Stops her Bath for You
Don�t talk to me. I�m mad at you.

The reason is, I had just settled into my bath of cool water today, draping a washcloth over my swollen face and newly plumped (yesterday) lips. It�s a real high point for me these last few days. So I was laying there, hadn�t picked up my Sweet Potato Queens Big-Assed Cookbook and Financial Planner to read yet, and was thinking how this morning the bath water didn�t have it�s faint odor of elephant manure. Yes, I�ve spent some time in Thailand now, and I do know what it smells like. If I draw my bath too early in the morning, I�m sure I detect the faint, not entirely unpleasant but completely inappropriate for a lady�s bath aroma rising from the surface of my water.

Well, all things considered, I think I�d choose to not have that aroma than to have it. In fact, I�d be tickled pink if I could have lived my whole life, including the rest of it, without ever even having to imagine such a smell could come from city water.

I should count my blessings, I guess. I�m fortunate to live in these latter days, when sanitization is so easily accomplished. I�m supplied by a happy young maid with no less than four sanitized drinking glasses each and every morning. I worried at first that I might have to pay special attention to my sanitized glasses and what went into them. I assumed that nothing should touch them except pure bottled water and my own virginal lips. But no. As it turn out, it�s not a problem at all. My happy maid has a virtually limitless supply of small, plastic sacks, just the right size for a drinking glass. On the outside of the sack, in plain english, the contents are certified to be sanitized for my very own, personal protection. It matters not what was in a glass previous to her arrival with these magic sleeves. All that is necessary is that she rinse out the glass in the yellowish elephant water, wipe it with the driest corner of my last-used bath towel and insert it into the magic sanitizing sack. Waa Laa! Sanitized!

But that�s not why I�m mad. No, I�m mad, because laying there in my fragrance-free bath this morning I remembered a sight I had to describe to you. It�s elephant related, which is why I remembered it just then. An ordinary person could just �make a mental note� and do it later, but not me. I laread have more �mental notes� than I can handle. The inside of my hade is like one of those McDonald�s Playhouse areas with all the plastic balls that sometimes swallow small children and, legend has it, used hypodermic needles, for hours and sometimes days at a time. The only difference is that instead of plastic balls � and needles, of course, mine is filled with blizzards of mental sticky notes that fly around chaotically, sticking to the walls, ceiling, and each other. What I really need is to call the mental disposal company and have them bring out a mental construction dumpster for a week so I can just shovel out all the mental notes and maybe start over.

So obviously, nothing would do but I had to get out of my beloved tub, dry my hair and come downstairs, ask the official internet-starting boy to take the red velvet cloth from the monitor of the only computer available for rent, and perform the secret ritual to get me hooked up at this amazing 26 kps line to the outside world� all so I could tell you about the elephants I saw the other night. Are you ready?

Riding along the highway, it�s not unusual to see the odd elephant here and there, lumbering along the left hand side of the road with its driver perched very high above the mo-peds, passenger cars and frieght trucks that whiz by at frightening speed. Just like you�ve seen on TV, elephants are still used for their labor, and nowhere more than here. Intersting, but no big deal.

Night before last, though, I had occasion to be out with Wannee, coming home after dark from an errand and a walk with her. I guess it never occurred to me that an elephant or its owner would even think of plying these chaotic highways after dark. I was wrong. I saw for the first time that night, not one, but several elephants, all the exact same color as the night, carrying their owners to who knows where, just as if it were high noon.

I hit a moose once. Well, I hit two moose, actually, each at different times. But the adult female moose I really hit head on destroyed the front end of my brand-new 1991 Chevy Suburban 2500. Now this is a big car. But then a moose is a big animal� or so I thought.

The idea of running into the tail end of a full grown elephant is something I don�t like to contemplate. But here�s the thing I found interesting. The Thais have got this one item of traffic safety covered. You see, midway up the tail of each elephant traveling in the dark along the shoulder of the highway had not a red reflector, not a red light, but a BLINKING red light solidly attatched!

Glued? Stitched? I have no idea. But each elephant I saw was identically equipped. Technology meets tradition and the real and true meaning of tail-light is discovered.

Back to my bath now. I hope it was interesting enough for the trouble. And don�t worry, I won�t be mad long. It goes against the rhythm of life here, which is expressed by the Thai term �mai pen rai�, or �don�t trouble your heart about it�.

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