Just Some Errands

After living in Thailand for 9 years I sometimes forget how strange my life really is to so many people. My friends say, “So what did you do today?” and I say, “Oh, nothin’ much. Just some errands.”

But then I stop and remember most Americans have no idea what “Just some errands” entails. So, I thought I would enlighten you. 🙂 Aren’t you just dying to know what goes into the everyday workings of Livin’ the Thai Life? 

First we needed to stop over at the post office. While whatever business we were there for was being done I decided to walk over and check out a stand full of things for sale. Amongst the bags of soybeans and Menthol based balms I found these:

Yummy. Aren’t they cute with their little eyes?!?! You know you want to buy these and stick them in with little bobby’s birthday card. 

Or if those are too cute for you, we have these bigger one with genuine rotting flesh wounds.  They’re Aunt Martha’s FAVSIES. 

let’s move onto the hardware store. Ours is called “Global House” which is a way cooler name than “Lowes” in my opinion. Global House has one problem. Waaaay too many employees. There are about three of them to every aisle and they are trained to greet you as faithfully as Chick-Fil-A employees are trained to reply with, “My Pleasure” when you say “Thank you.” Since there are so many of them they don’t usually have much to do but stand at the end of their aisle and greet you. 

Now, picture this:

30 Aisles. 

3 employees to every Aisle. 

You have to walk to the very last aisle where your people are waiting. 

You are Angelina Jolie. 

Or… You are painted some weird shade of neon orange. How you want to translate the stares is up to you. 

Are you kind of getting the idea? It’s really hard for any american to understand what being a “Farang”(White Foreigner) in Thailand really means. The USA is a melting pot. You can walk down the street and see people of every skin color, eye color, and ethnicity in the world. In Thailand… everyone is Thai. And you have (extremely) white skin, green eyes, and red hair. Ok, maybe YOU don’t have that, but you know what I’m talking about. I am not Thai. 

How do I handle this popularity? Usually smile big and acknowledge them too, sometimes I stare straight ahead and walk as quickly as I can, and other times I stare at my feet and try not to look at anyone. It really depends. On whether I feel like I’m painted Neon Orange or not. 

And now, Grocery shopping time!!! We do most of our grocery shopping in the Thai equivalent of Sam’s Club. It is called Makro. In Makro we find amazing things like: 

The biggest produce in the world.

And… 

These green things. Wanna guess what they are?

Beef Gallbladders

and Spleens. 

We also buy our Dog food at Makro. Only, our dog food isn’t Purina chow with meaty bites. We feed our dogs chicken bodies. A chicken body is basically all the meat and bones that are left after all the cuts popular for human consumption are gone. They are very good for dogs and they look like this:

We have around 7 dogs that eat these regularly and as they grow bigger we buy more and more of these things. The butchers at makro have no idea that we feed these things to our dogs. All they know is about every two weeks this white girl comes in and asks in her sweet little Thai voice, “Sir, I would like to order 100 pounds of chicken carcasses please.” The first couple of times they were like, WHA? And now they smile, walk around the corner to get my chicken bodies, peer out from behind their glass window, look me in the eye, and we all bust out laughing. 

I can’t tell them what all those chicken bodies are for because Mom and Dad think it is way too hilarious to have them all befuddled and confused. (They have overheard employees discussing what we could possibly be doing with all of those chicken bodies)  

I feel like those two butchers are my buddies as we all laugh at each other.  I wonder what kind of crazy jokes they make about me behind their counter? Leave a comment and tell me what you would say about me.  😉  

These are just a few of the everyday adventures of living in Thailand. 

Love,

That white girl who takes pictures of beef gallbladders and orders 100 pounds of chicken carcasses