On headaches

Thai people don't take anything straight. Black coffee means a premix of 5% instant coffee, 60% sugar, and 30% creamer (with preservatives). Wine drinking is refined to spritzers, usually with a stick of sugar, of the Bacardi Breezer ilk. The plainest chicken you can find is boiled in tamarind syrup; pork or chicken can sometimes, rarely, if you know exactly where to look, be found in straight fried form, without extra spices or breading. Even then, the person doling it out will squirt/ladel in sauce as naturally as checking a zipper. A d even if you make enough stink to send that back and get a new, plain piece, the bag it comes in will already have a little baggie of chili sauce or fish juice.

So it came to tonight's party, when it was our turn to host the faculty from the tech school across the street. We had four entrees with twelve sauces and at least as many people ready to leap to your assistance and save you from putting the wrong sauce on the wrong item; you might not be able to taste anything after the shrimp curry, but at least your taste buds won't be assaulted by lime juice on your shrimp or fish sauce on your chicken. There were jugs of beer and litres of a locally distilled spirit. There was Thai style cowboy dancing(more on this in a moment). It was a good time.
And then I was trying to leave and found myself surrounded by a group of thai Prattom teachers, mostly the guys who work very hard to cultivate the appearance of being tough badasses. They had just filled an ice bucket with beer and mixed a brandy. Suddenly it became very important that I have some.
Very important.
A big matter of face.
Walk off and I snub them while making myself look like a weenie.
In America, this is a matter of ego and stupid. In Thailand, even if it's stupid, it has the severity of, say, a DUI back stateside. You do not mess around when this much face is at stake.
So I figured I could make everyone feel good and myself look good if I finished one of the proffered drinks, and a brandy spritzer seemed the lesser evil, so I took the glass and downed it.
Know how sometimes, say when you're chugging milk from the carton in front of the fridge at midnight, you get surprised by the milk actually being bad but don't realize it until the third big glug?
It was straight rotgut.
There was a lot of cheering.
I had some WEIRD dreams, and there is an angry something trying to fight its way out of my skull.
And somehow it's still a winning situation. Come Monday, I'll feel okay and my coworkers will all be impressed by Scrawny finishing the brandy meant for the table, not a single drink.
And boy does that do wonders for my head....

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