Ta-Daaaa!

Chaos: Any state of disorder, any confused or amorphous mixture or conglomeration.

Yesterday our friends hauled our asses up into the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai.  Very nice.  Very, very nice.  It was much cooler and it was very high mountain junglely which was spectacularly beautiful.  And it was quiet.  Chiang Mai - for all of its charms - is chaotic.  One's senses are under constant assault from cars and bikes and people and just noise, all of which must be navigated on broken pavement and non-existent sidewalks.

We get home about 7PM, happy and grateful for a nice day, the eaten ATM card escapade tucked into dark recesses of our minds.

"Let's go get the name of the bank so we can at least try to make a phone call tomorrow," I suggested.  We're wandering around the outside of the building - a Western Union office or so we thought - when a couple of other Anglos smiled at us.

"This machine ate my ATM," I quipped.  "It's on my shit list."

The guy laughed, stood up, walked around a bit.  

"Are you sure this isn't a bank?" he said.  "There's like a bank name all over the building."  (Ed. Note - Thanachart Bank - Thanon Nimmanhemin Branch.  I am not making this up.)

Hmmm.  About this time a young Thai woman working a food truck parked on the sidewalk - where else? - having overheard our conversation, comes over, taps on the window of the closed bank, and has a chat with a nice lady inside who peeks out the closed security gate.

"She's looking," she said.

 A minute later the bank women comes back, cracks open the security gate, and asks: "What is your name?"

"Seaweed the Dumbass," I reply.

She smiles, bows sweetly, and holds up the ATM card.  It was like a magician pulling a diamond ring out of rabbit's ass.  She won't, of course - hand the thing over without a passport and frankly wants to go home.  I sprint to the condo, get the passports, and make it back in short order.  Forms are signed, bows are exchanged, and the ATM is in SuperK's much more adult hands.

The whole bank card caper reminds me of a nimble-fingered adult astounding a young child by seeming to pull nickels out of her ears and then to make them go away.  God likes to have fun, too, for god's sake.