StreetSmart's posts with tag: depression
Street Smart Sukhumvit is depressed. And it's all got to do with three things: the rain, an old lady and the whole freakin' world.
This is what happened:
So there I was, deeeeeep inside Sukhumvit 39, coming out of a condo and grumbling under my breath because it had rained earlier ("It's only February, for Pete's sake~!! It's not supposed to rain yet~!! I haaaate getting my feet wet~!!").
The condo's friendly security guard approached me and asked, "Do you need a TAXI?" I said yes, and he asked, "Would you mind if an old lady rides with you?"
"EH~?!" I didn't expect that. "What old lady?"
He pointed to the guardhouse where a tiny old woman was sitting. "She needs to go to the pak soi (mouth of the soi) to the main Sukhumvit Road. Can she come along?"
"Oh, sure!" I said. He thanked me profusely and went back to the guardhouse.
I finally got a close look at the old lady - carrying a handbag in one hand and a red plastic bag in the other, she was extremely old and frail, with silver hair held back with bobby pins. She was wearing a soft pink blouse and holding tightly to the guard's arm for walking support. My heart went out to her.
"Nhu, are you sure I can ride with you?" she asked me with a tiny voice. Her face, though deeply wrinkled, had a cheerful and open expression.
"Yes, sure, no problem," I assured her.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Thonglo," I said.
"Oh, good," she commented. "My house is in Sukhumvit 67, so I can just get off at any bus stop."
I smiled at her and the guard said, "I'll get you two a TAXI."
Now, to those unfamiliar with Bangkok's TAXIs - TAXIs are very plentiful in Bangkok... unless of course:
1). It's the Songkran holiday (in which Bangkok becomes a ghost town, thus making finding a TAXI more impossible than winning the lottery).
2). It's raining (then the usually jolly, warm and considerate TAXI drivers turn into money-grubbing, whiny spoiled brats pickier than Tom Ford and Naomi Campbell combined).
Five (count 'em F-I-V-E~!!!) TAXIs came and they aaaaaaaaall refused to take us~!! Some didn't even slow down, stop and ask us where we'd like to go. Noooo... they just sped by without even a glance~!!
Five minutes passed... ten minutes... fifteen minutes. Then suddenly a TAXI (with passengers) came and entered the condo's compound~!! What a coincidence~!!
"Chok dii, leu-i (what good luck)~!!" I happily remarked as I watched the two passengers come out of the vehicle. Knowing that the old lady had difficulty walking, the guard said, "Wait here, I'll tell the driver where to go," and approached the TAXI.
In the meantime, I slowly maneuvered the fragile grandma so she would be facing the correct side of the TAXI.
But the TAXI just passed us by~!! I thought the driver didn't see us, so I quickly knocked on the TAXI's window, but there was no effect. The driver kept going and left us in the (wet) lurch~!!
"WHY~??" the grandma asked in such a way that my heart almost broke.
"Erm... I dunno..." I told her. "Maybe there's bad traffic up ahead."
So we waited again.
When another 10 minutes passed, the old lady said, "We can start walking to the intersection. Maybe there'll be more TAXIs there."
"Yes, good idea," I agreed, and told the guard that we were just going to walk to the intersection, about 15 meters away from the condo.
Well, the road was slick with rain and the traffic was very busy.
"Should I hold your hand?" I asked the old lady. She passed me her red plastic bag to hold and said, "No, just keep your forearm steady; I'll hold onto it."
I did as she asked but her grip was tight and shaky at the same time that I became very paranoid she would fall if she stepped onto something slippery. What's more, vehicles kept zipping past us. The old woman's legs were so weak and quivering I was afraid she would collapse any minute~!!
We were moving at a snail's pace while my brain was racing one kilometer per second... trying to keep her steady... thinking of other ways to reach the pak soi... wondering if we could take the songtaew instead of TAXI...
We reached the intersection and prepared to cross the street. Luckily, the light was red, so we tried to walk as quickly as possible to reach the other side of the road before the light turn green.
Suddenly, I spied the red light of an empty TAXI declaring "waang" (free/unoccupied) and made a desperate wish to all the deities in the cosmos that this particular TAXI driver wouldn't refuse to take us.
I flagged down the TAXI and quickly opened the door.
"I will get off earlier than you, so you better go into the TAXI first," the grandma said and I complied. I quickly got off the pavement, jumped into the TAXI, put down my bag and her red plastic bag and stretched my arm to her to help her get inside.
"Hurry up~!! Hurry up and get in~!!" the TAXI driver shouted. "The police might see me blocking the traffic~!!"
The old lady panicked. She tried to step down from the pavement and enter the TAXI at the same time. As a result, she banged her head on the TAXI's door frame.
"Oi, hua taek (broken head)~!!" she said.
"Omigod," I said. "Are you OK??" She finally managed to bring her whole body into the TAXI and rubbed her head. I quickly shut the door and the TAXI sped by.
"Driver, she's going to Thonglo," said the old woman. "But I need to get off at the bus stop on Sukhumvit."
"OK," he said. "But erm... are you sure you can get on the bus~?!" You're old and frail~!!" (I silently agreed and wondered).
"No problem," the grandma claimed. "Bus drivers usually feel sorry for old people, so they stop and wait for me." (I was more thinking about how come this old and fragile woman was traveling alone without any help).
Luckily, the main Sukhumvit Road wasn't very jammed, so when we reached a bus stop, the TAXI stopped to let the grandma out.
"WHO is she~??" the TAXI driver asked me when we were on the road again.
"Erm, I dunno her," I said.
"Auw, then how come she was with you~?!" the driver asked, confused.
"I just met her in Sukhumvit 39, and she asked me if she could ride with me," I explained.
"She's soooo OLD~!!!" the TAXI driver remarked.
"Yes, I felt sorry for her," I said.
"Her family shouldn't let her go around alone like that," the driver commented. "But you know how things are these days... Today's young people don't care about the old anymore. Aaaaaaaaaaaall the care about is MONEYMONEYMONEY~!!"
(This last comment kinda made me feel a bit guilty too, by the way~!!)
When I arrived at my destination (Thonglo), I told a few of my friends about my encounter with the frail old woman. While almost everybody felt that I did the right thing by letting her ride with me, one wasn't so impressed.
"She said her house is in Sukhumvit 67, right??"
I said yes and he continued, "Then why didn't you just bring her home to Sukhumvit 67, and then go back to Thonglo afterwards~??"
I was speechless for a while (yes, why didn't I think of THAT~?!?!).
"Uh... to be honest, that thought NEVER actually crossed my mind," I admitted. "Like I said, my brain was a bit in 'panic mode' starting with the moment we began walking to the intersection. I was sooooo paranoid she was gonna fall and break a bone, so I was watching the ground VERY closely. She was holding my left arm tightly, and I was carrying her plastic bag in my right hand, plus I was also trying to come up with other ways to reach the main Sukhumvit Road without a TAXI... and all these while trying to balance myself on high heels on a wet road~!!"
He shook his head and said, "Not a very fast thinker, are you~?" (GRRRR...).
*********************************
And this is the reason why I'm aaaaaall depressed now.
I am feeling guilty for not thinking fast enough to bring the old lady straight to her house.
But more than that, I am also depressed because she was traveling alone, so vulnerable and simply relying on others' kindness. I mean, she couldn't even walk properly, for Buddha's sake~!! Where was her family~?! Would she go out again tomorrow~?? Does she still have to WORK out of necessity at this age~?! How does she survive every single day in this condition~?!
She could be ME a few decades from now.
"There's only one thing you can do to ensure you won't end up like her," one of my friends claimed when I whined to her about my depression.
"You just gotta make sure you're rich already when you're old~!! Then you can buy machines and hire people to make your life easier. The way things are going right now, even having children won't guarantee that you'll be taken care of when you're already old and wrinkly~!! Kids will probably just suck money out of you and then leave you out to dry~!! SIGH~!!!"
GROAN.... depressionnnnnnnn~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. Dear my dearest readers,
I know this SSS blog is s'posed to be everything light and funny about Sukhumvit, BUT this thing has just been BUGGIN' the hell outta me for quite some time, and that's why I decided to post it here for several reasons:
1). I can hopefully get decent sleep
2). After dumping my thoughts here, my brain will be emptied and be at peace (can't have this thought running around my brain all the time~!!)
3). I can return to writing about silly and nonsense Sukhumvit stuff~!!
P.P.S And I'm sorry for not having any cool pics for this blog entry~!! Believe me, my two hands were fully occupied that time and my brain was thinking more on the line of "Don't let her fall~!!" instead of "Take some cool pics now~!!"
 Be nice to the oldies~!!
streetsmartsukhumvit@gmail.com  sukhumvit  bangkok  thailand
| |
