you would think it would come in really handy to be able to speak thai when an accident happens. and it probably would. but turns out what happens is i completely forget all my thai. i even forget how to understand thai. and i wasn't even involved in this acccident. i didn't even know an accident had happened until someone appeared at my gate asking me about it.

khun pairat, the thai lady who manages the property down the street from us, rang my door bell. she's never rung my door bell. i head out to see what she needs. she's with her daughter. they ask me about my son. the one who was just almost hit by a motorbike. like 5 minutes ago. i have no idea what they are talking about. all my kids are home. all my bikes are home. she says it was my son. my son in the blue shirt. my tall son. so i go in and get #1 - who is wearing a blue shirt. he's pretty casual about it. yeah, that happened. no big deal. and that's when i went thai language stupid.

#1 has no other information for me. khun pairat says something else to me, but i don't understand what it is. about this time my mobile rings. it's another neighbor calling to see if i need help translating. i say i think i'm okay, but will call back if i do. i hang up and immediately another neighbor calls to let me know that another neighbor, bill, is on his way to my house to help me. when he gets here he says that the motorbike rider is still down the street and he wants to see me. i head back into the house to change clothes and grab some money. i'm not sure of the proper protocol, but want to be prepared.

i get down the street and notice skid marks in the street. skid marks that start a pretty good ways from the intersection. and i can see the motorbike guy. he's got some scrapes - nothing horrible, but certainly painful looking. and then i see his bike. it has some minor body damage - paint scraped, side mirror missing, bumper a bit caddy-wampus. now we come to the tricky part. and i don't mean determining fault. the tricky part is figuring out how much and who this is gonna cost. (the who part wasn't really tricky at all. we're farang, he's thai. there's pretty much only one solution to that problem.) there are also all kinds of cultural nuances i'm completely ignorant to. i do know i need to look very sorry and express it, but i cannot even remember how to say i'm sorry in thai. i think bill has realized by now that i'm completely useless and he steps in for me and translates what i should be saying. i don't know if i'm supposed to offer money or if i'm supposed to wait for him to name a price. the group gathered around to help me says we should not rush, wait to see what the driver has to say. the driver is consulting with his friends and khun pairat. he says his only concern is that his bike be repaired. (did i mention that this motorbike appears brand new?) khun pairat suggests that she accompany him to the repair shop tomorrow and then they can bring me the estimate. i discover someone from our family should go to the hospital with him, but it would be inappropriate for me to be go. thankfully, a male neighbor, jeff, volunteers to go in my place. i give jeff some money to cover the hospital bill and he heads out. jeff spends a good portion of his evening at the hospital. he returns with good news. there was no charge at the hospital. he says it's some sort of health initiative or something. he wasn't exactly sure. the doctor did give the guy a doctor's note for 2 days off of work. and jeff arranged for all parties to meet again on saturday.

while jeff was at the hospital i returned home to see if #1 could fill in any of the blanks in this story. like the when and the how and the exactly what happened. #1 and i had had a bit of a heated conversation and we'd gone to our separate corners. tonight, he had chosen anywhere but home to be his corner so he went for a bike ride. he didn't make it far before the accident happened. it seems this accident was quite loud. loud enough that many neighbors came out to check and see what was going on. one of the neighbors accessed the situation and sent #1 on home. and about 5 minutes later khun pairat was at my door. #1's version of the story has it being not his fault. and it matches up with the evidence (thank you law & order and csi for my detective training). the other version that has been suggested - and not from an eye witness - places #1 clearly in the wrong, but doesn't fit. however, it doesn't really matter. i can see it happening just the way #1 says it happened and the guy still going down.

i've been coached a bit about what should happen saturday. i should once again be sorry. #1 will be with me and he will be sorry. bill and jeff will be with me and they will be sorry - we will be one sorry group. then i will offer to pay for the days of work he missed and for the repairs on his motorbike.

there is one thing i find very interesting and that is that the medical report says it was a single motorbike accident. no bicycle mentioned.

these are instructions for an assignment from #1's health class. i'm guessing that they're talking about the all encompasing influence of media. (i'm pretty good at the whole deduction game).

all the tv we see is pre-recorded and no commercials. other media influences my son has are movies, internet, and music. i would think this would allow for a sufficient amount of media influence, but after seeing his "media kid" i'm thinking we might need to get ourselves some tv. because his "kid" is more weird than cool. and probably not cool at all.

here are some interpretations of his labels. and my best guesses at the what influenced them.

a) legit monocle - didn't someone in harry potter have a monocle?
b) gangster beanie - he's recently seen all the godfather movies. so, i guess he'd know about beanies.
c) ghetto earrings - the blind side. sandra bullock goes to big mike's old neighborhood. it's in the ghetto. i think some of the guys had earrings.
d) fancy tie - probably another thing learned from the godfather movies. they wore ties, right?
e) bling bling - i would guess the wire, but the use of "bling bling" has me thrown off. it seems a bit sissy.
f) coke - it's everywhere
g) low riding boxers - i don't even know what they are. i thought the pants were the low rider and the boxers were to stay up so they could be seen.
h) levi's baggy jeans - maybe friends. he's seen a few episodes and i'm thinking they were still doing baggies in the '90s.
i) orange converse - chuck. except chuck's are black. this is about the only cool his "media kid" has got going for him - if the opinion of an approaching 40 year old mom counts.
j) sexy toupee -possibly from a cohen brothers movie. but i think sexy toupee is an oxymoron.

we're driving home the other night and #1 says, "hey, is dad asleep at the wheel? oh wait, dad's not driving."

this wrong side of the car thing has us all screwed up.

every once in a while one of my kids will go out of his or her way to make me the proudest momma ever and every once in a while i'll get a ring side seat to endure witness it and when it's an opportunity to make me really, really proud there will be others there as well. it goes something like this. we're invited over to some friends for dinner and another family that we're friends with is also invited. we enjoy a lovely dinner, some good conversation and all and all it's a pleasant evening. between us we have 9 children and 3 of these are teens enjoying the teen privilege of eating with the adults. of course, one of these teens is tb, and it hasn't been too long since he acquired the t in the tb. and it's probably important to note that of these three he's the only boy. okay, i think that's enough set up. oh, almost enough. i forgot one really important thing... and that would be that the friends who invited us over - well, the husband - he's also a pastor at our church. now, i'm ready to tell my tale.

where was i... lovely dinner, pleasant evening, oh and then tb forgets to shut up. i mean he becomes the biggest conversation hog ever. and does he have things to share. i'm not even sure what he's talking about; i'm trying my darndest to tune him out. but i become aware that all ears are on him. so i figure i better start listening too; and he's going on about how they have a word of the day everyday at school and i'm not exactly sure why everyone is paying such close attention to him - i guess they're just trying to be polite; they are awarded greatly for this courtesy, because tb goes on to say, "one day this week, the word of the day was b#$%@rd."* i'm not sure what was said after that, it was like i'd been knocked unconscious for a short while and when i came to it seemed one of my fellow dinner companions had changed the conversation to what we were looking forward to in thailand. tb, who seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that his mom is sitting right beside him twitching in a most unnatural way, jumps into this conversation with both feet - because he. can't. shut. up. and he lets everyone know that the one thing he really isn't looking forward to is eating elephant penis soup.

*for those of you who are now concerned about the quality of tb's education - his teacher was appalled when i asked him about this word of the day. we're not sure what happened, but an investigation is now underway.

and i do believe tb better pay close attention to what he's served in thailand.

i'm not the youngest in my family so i have no idea what it's like to be the last, the baby. i do know a youngest, but i don't think he's a reliable source. from what i remember he was the one who got away with everything and i'm pretty sure my parents thought he was the bomb. so trying to figure out how my youngest thinks and feels isn't all that easy for me and my source for this analysis is a little unorthodox, but i think i'm starting to figure it out. see for the past 6 months, maybe even a year, i think something has been weighing heavy on #3's mind. after consulting the best experts money can buy google i think i have it all figured out. he's not happy as the baby. he wants what #1 has... maybe he even wants to be #1. it's kind of like when jacob stole esau's blessing and since #1 isn't hairy, #3 has found the next best thing. i will now produce exhibit a - and give a little bit of the back story.

here's exhibit a only...

the labels on this picture fit the original post. names have been changed since then. now it would be, the man, me, #1, #2, #3

one day i was out running errands and i glanced into the rear view mirror and noticed something wasn't right with the #1 on the rear window of my car. i figured the sticker was coming apart. slowly, more and more of #1 went missing. enough that friends had begun a #1 watch and they would report to me anytime more of him was gone. i couldn't figure it out. then i caught him - #3 was scraping a small piece of #1 off the window and cackling one of those mad scientist kind of laughs - i was surprised i hadn't figured it out sooner. #3 was slowly trying to blot out #1. peal him out of existence. now, i'm thinking if i was the baby and i knew that was never, ever, going to change maybe i would take some drastic measure. and the audacity of skipping over #2 - of course, i'm pretty sure no one would really choose to be the middle (trust me, i know what i'm talking about) - to go straight for the oldest - what moxie. Perhaps he's been doing a little internet research of his own and found this...

a child's birth order position may be seized by another child if circumstances permit

and this is just the circumstance he needed.

then again, i could be missing it all together and it's not #1's birth right he's after, he just wants the spot next to mom, after all, that spot is the bomb.