So, my parents and I went to Bangkok. It was National Golden Week in China and my Dad needed to get away. So we got cheap flights to Bangkok and planned a lovely trip. A following post will express all my love for Thailand, and have photos and anecdotes. This post is dedicated to our return trip that we made today.
The morning started off with me still recovering from too much delicious green chile laden Thai food...I'll leave it at that.
We arranged for our bill to be paid, but my Dad like all great Jews wanted to get rid of as much cash as possible while settling our hotel bill. This prolonged and complicated the process, he also declared that he lost his debit card, because it wasn't in the stack of cards he kept in his pocket. This was the same man that claimed to have been pick-pocketed the day before, only to find the money in another pocket the next morning. So that dilemma aside, we get in our taxi have a few monetary and lingual fumbles with the driver over the payment of road tolls and arrive at the airport. I started to lift suitcases out of the taxi and the driver grunted and me sternly and made it clear that I was not to lift the luggage, which annoyed me greatly - being the strong, proud, able-bodied woman that I am.
We get checked into our flight, move through passport control and get to security at which point my Mom holds up the line a few times, not understanding that yes, an iPad is a computer and must be scanned separately, yes you have to remove your fanny pack/bum bag and it must be scanned. She makes it through and they ask to look at her carry on roller suitcase. She then opens it, and starts taking things out and explaining what they are, what her c-pap machine is etc. mind you there are people piling up behind me(not to mention the back up of items shooting out the x-ray conveyor belt) and I tell her, "Mom, he just wants to test your bag, go over there with him, you are holding up the line" she goes over there and somehow convinces them to let her keep her over-sized Crabtree and Evelyn perfume bottle she thoughtlessly packed in her carryon. I love my Mom, and she is so accommodating that she sometimes doesn't understand what is being asked of her.
We have over an hour till our plane boards so my Dad and I find a bookstore with lots of newspapers, magazines and books to peruse. After about 10min my Mom announces from outside the shop that she is going to get a drink. I said "wait!" and she was off. We get to the check out counter with our over-priced foreign newspapers(the guardian, because I'm a raging liberal and the IHT for my snobbish father) and we realize that she walked off with all the money. So we go on a hunting party for her...but she has vanished down a long terminal lined with one place to procure food and drink and the rest places to purchase any duty free item you could want. After speed walking in heightening frustration and desperation like McCallisters in the O'hara - we find her at very end of the terminal staring at a leader board trying to find our gate number. Still needing a beverage my parents spot a Dairy Queen(wth!) and I head back to get my newspaper.
When we head to our flight my Mom keeps asking me if I need help with her tink roller hand luggage. Finally I tell her, "I don't know if you know this Mom, but I am an adult that has paid her taxes by herself for the past 7 years, I'm a quite capable highly functioning adult and a testament to your skill as a parent. You really should be very proud because I'm quite fantastic." Rarely to I get to toot my own horn so sardonically, but we all have our shining moments.
We make it all the way to the gate(after following a labyrinthine ram and stairs that were make out of metal with a bumpy pattern that didn't really consider what it would sound like with a battalion of roller luggage parading down it) to get in line to have our tickets checked yet again, and right as we get to the front of the line, a Chinese fellow who is standing off to the side, greets his family who have just arrived, and pulls them all in front of me completely cutting in line, in my terrible Chinese I say, "what are you doing?! I am here!" my Dad turned around and in English got rough and angry and said "NO! get in the line! are you children?!" he pushed them physically off to the side and pointed at the end of the line, and they were yelling and I tried to say "rude, it is rude - must begin over there" that only made them yell at me more.
We arrive in Hong Kong, make it through - decide against taking the ferry home, and opt for a "limo van". Limo vans are really nice vans(roomy comfortable etc) that are a bit spendy for most to hire to take them through the border, but you don't have to get out of the car, or be jostled in line by Chinese trying to cut in front of you, you can read and make your way through the border, and they take you all the way to your house if you pay a little more. Each van seats six passengers and the driver. My parents and I were half the passengers. First my Mom had an unholy fight with the seat-belt. Then as we made our quiet journey through the SAR I started hearing fart noises. We are on leather seats, makes sense. Move around, adjust your weight in the seat, and the unfortunate noise comes forth. I noticed them more and more, coming from my Mom's seat...only she wasn't moving. Farting noise + no movement = actual farting. I couldn't believe it. I mean I really could, my Mom feels really free about passing gas, in a vulgar uncouth way, but in a car! A confined space with strangers?!
As we are waiting at the border crossing my Dad starts making this awful lip-smacking, saliva sucking sound. The poor Taiwanese guy next to me looked disgusted. "Dad, what are you doing?!" his reply, "There is something stuck in my teeth."
"So, wait until we get home to get it out, like a civilized adult."
Thankfully he stopped, mostly. Every now and then he'd make an attempt.
We get home and my ability to open the front door is questioned before we get inside. And I escape to my room. Before long I hear my Dad's cackle as he watches his favorite middle-american show Two and a Half Men. I never should have bought him all 6 seasons from the DVD stand on the street for $4. It's probably where he is picking up bad social habits.
Seriously though, I love my parents.
