Anniversary plans, wife plays football, Mum-in-law cheers eldest son

‘In August, I will have been living here 10 years,’ I told boyfriend Maiyuu.

‘And in October, we have another anniversary - you and I will have been together 10 years,’ I told him.

I met Maiyuu only weeks after I moved to the Land of Smiles.

‘What shall we do to celebrate? As it happens, I am going to see my family overseas about the same time,’ I said.

‘Never mind. So, 10 years ago, we married. To mark the anniversary, shall we get a divorce?’ he asked jokingly.

‘No, I think we should stay together a while yet,’ I replied.

Where else would I find such a good cook? He’s the keeper of my stomach flame, if there’s such a thing.

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‘Oops – your wife is calling!’ said Maiyuu.

He was about to enter my bedroom early last evening when he heard my phone go. He assumed it was Ball.

Actually, it was Ball’s Mum. She invited me to drop in before I left for work.

‘Ball is playing football nearby. He might want a beer when he is finished,’ she suggested.

‘Okay, I’ll be right there,’ I said.

I turned to Maiyuu, who was listening.

‘It’s not my wife – it’s his Mum,’ I joked.

I had just finished on the phone. Or maybe I had cupped my hand over the phone while Ball’s Mum was still on the line, I can’t remember.

In any event, Maiyuu and I know not to get too serious about such things.

I like to take a wife in addition to Maiyuu. In my eyes, Ball's a surrogate son. But for Maiyuu's he's my second wife, even if our relationship is innocent.

That makes Ball’s mother my mother-in-law...and appropriately enough, when I am with her, I call her Mae (the Thai word for Mum).

‘Mae!’ I said last night, as I turned up at her place about 11.30pm.

I had just finished work, and was on my way home. I didn’t make it to her place earlier that evening, as I was already running late for work.

'I couldn't get here,' I said, while declining to say that my real reason for the no-show was that I thought Ball had already imbibed enough.

I had seen him earlier in the day, when we polished off four bottles of the brown stuff.

A few hours after I left, Ball went out to play football with his friends.

Last night, before I turned up at his place, I called him from the office.

'I didn’t fall or get any new ankle injuries,' he told me, after I asked.

That means that this week I shall have no new scabs to pick.

Damn. I can’t pursue my lustful ways with his spindly legs!

By the time I called in to see them last night, Ball had gone to bed.

He had only just mounted the stairs to his room, after waiting for hours for me to turn up. But I couldn’t get there in time, so that was that.

Mum was drinking beer with two of her women friends, one of whom, Noi, works with Ball in Silom.

‘He sits there all day, bored and lonely, as he has no one there for company,’ said Noi.

‘However, the cleaning and security staff are amazed at how beautiful he looks. One woman asked if he was gay, he has such a soft face,’ she said.

I chatted to Mum. She pulled down pictures and certificates which she keeps on the wall of her eldest son, Boy.

He is a soldier, and unlike the others graduated with a school leaving qualification, and a youth award.

‘There might be 600 people in this slum. Not one of the families has a son who achieved this award,’ she said proudly, holding aloft a portrait of Boy receiving his award from a member of the royal family.

‘He’s the only one who has never disappointed me. He doesn’t smoke, or drink. He works hard, and looks after his Mum,’ she said.

Ball and his younger brother Beer must have heard this story 100 times before, I thought – about how their angelic elder brother outshines them all.

While Boy has no discernible faults, Ball drinks, while Mr B is addicted to computer games.

Mum still loves the other kids, of course. Boy is merely the pride of the household – its public face which she can show the world when it drops in for a visit.

Boy looks most like his Dad - Mum's husband, now deceased - while the others take after Mum herself.

‘I don’t have any ugly children – that’s a good thing at least,’ she said.