Sandy vs. The Electric Company
It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when I decided to start a new story. After finishing one last night, I had let myself slide this morning. My heart froze when my computer didn’t respond to being plugged in. But then neither did the lamp. I’ve grown used to my water being turned off at odd times since construction began on The Great Wall of Thailand, so I figured this was related.
I have so far avoided talking to the workmen. This accounts for their surprise when I walked out into the yard and greeted them, “Sawadee kah.” “Sawadee krap,” they returned, looking at me like I’d just sprouted an extra arm or two. I held up the lamp for their inspection. “Beautiful,” one of the men said, smiling at me. I looked at the lamp. Well, I thought, it’s just an ordinary desk lamp but it is quite a nice color, isn’t it? Then I realized he wasn’t talking about the lamp, of course. I ignored him and held up the plug, pretended to plug it in a few times, then sort of shook the lamp in their direction, in a gesture I hoped would say, “Turn my goddamn electricity back on or else.”
One of the men nodded, then walked toward the base of my house. I followed, hoping he was going to show me how to replace the fuse or something helpful like that, but instead he pointed at a miniature mail slot on one of the poles, behind a bush. In the box I found the last two months’ worth of electricity bills.
I am not an irresponsible person. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I have never in my life paid a bill late. So if someone would have mentioned to me that my bills would magically appear somewhere in the bushes, I would have hunted for them and paid, I swear.
So now it was late Friday afternoon and I was looking at a weekend – at least – with no lights, no music and no writing. No way. I took the bills to Lee (who lived in the house before me) to ask his advice. He asked A (who is Thai and lives/works next door to Lee) and she called the electric company and learned that because the power was shut off, I needed to pay at the main office far outside town on the highway that leads to Udon Thani, instead of at 7-11 or the post office, and that they closed for the weekend at 4pm. The clock read 3:35pm.
Everyone started running around and next thing I knew I was on the back of Lee’s motorbike with A at the helm, headed for the electric company. When we were waved to pull over along with a few other vehicles at a checkpoint, A waved no at the policeman, in a casual gesture like, “No thanks, not today.” If this had been the States, I’m sure we’d be in jail by now.
For the next terrifying fifteen minutes, we swerved at high speed past tour buses and trucks, and I had non-stop visions of Gallagher/watermelon type action between my head and the pavement (I hadn’t grabbed a helmet). We pulled into the parking lot and ran into the building with six minutes to spare. I paid my 30 cent electric bill and the $1.50 surcharge for getting the power turned back on, and we were back on the highway within minutes, with an assurance that electricity would be restored by 5pm.
Yay! So yeah. I win.
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
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