Shark with Fish Sauce

Ok, what happened?

Well, yeah, I got demoted, and what else is new? Mr. D returned from 11 days away in Paris, and took the Audi. Good-bye, smooth shifting, speedy acceleration, hello Mazda Etude! This car has a terrrible clutch (didn’t I just get rid of a car like this, in England?) and the hand-brake is shot. Oh, no! Whenever I’m stopped on a hill now, I get this creepy feeling that I am drifting, drifting backwards. I yank the brake some more, and then it’s on so tight you can’t release it to drive off. Problems, problems.

I know, I know, I could be in one of the crowds of people walking.

And the person who drove this thing before smoked, so pheee-yewww! And, as I said to Miss T, “Oh my goodness, 148000 blinkin’ miles on this thing!” To which she replied, comfortingly, “Mom, it’s only kilometers, now, isn’t it?” Yeah yeah, that makes it all a lot more palatable.

Bitter? Naw. Not me. Of course the real answer to at least some of my problems is, I should get a job. Then perhaps I’d have more control over my destiny (an illusion -- I know that, thanks), and I’d get to pick where I lived for once and for good, and I’d fly business class instead of coach. Or not fly at all, if I didn’t want to. But we’re the remoras to Mr. D’s shark, so... see? There you are. He swims, we tag along, cleaning up. (Actually, that’s a better analogy than I first thought.... unfortunately!)

My friend from Raleigh NC wrote and said, “South Africa? How did you end up there? You didn’t open a bottle of fish sauce again, did you?”

Yes, I’m afraid I did. It’s an old joke. Whenever I buy the giant gallon size bottle of fish sauce from Costco, or buy a side of beef and pack it into the freezer, or refinish the basement... yup, it’s almost immediately time to move again (two months, tops). Honestly, every time I pull that little ringy thing on the fish sauce to open a new bottle, I think, “Is this it? Is this gonna break the charm and send me packing, off to parts unknown... again?”

It’s really enough to put you off Thai food for good.