Soggy smalls drama

where the undies hang

A pair of underwear is causing a commotion at Ball’s place.

Ball’s cousin Nam, who lives with Ball’s family, hung out the washing the other day from a rickety wooden veranda on the top level of their two-storey place.

Among the washing was a pair of her knickers.

The people who live opposite took offence. Whenever they looked up, they caught an eyeful of Nam’s soggy smalls.

Underwear is regarded as a dirty, lower-body thing. Yet here it was, dangling above their heads, regarded as the loftiest part of the body.

Ball’s family home is in a slum, where nothing goes unnoticed.

For many Thais, the underwear omission may have passed unremarked.

But for the ignorant types who live opposite – suspicious souls who believe the sight of Nam's smalls could be a bad omen – it was too big an opportunity to pass up.

Why not pick a fight with the neighbours?

Ball says the people opposite are strict about their religious beliefs.

I believe they are mere trouble-makers, and can't stand the sight of them.

Just as they had intended, their silly complaint about Nam’s knickers had everyone in a twist.

Ball's family does not want trouble with the neighbours. Their complaint set off a small domestic crisis.

Ball’s mother reprimanded Nam.

‘I have told you to keep them indoors, but you won’t listen,’ she said.

Ball’s elder sister Kae also weighed in.

Nam, 14, a cheerful girl who does not let much worry her, took the criticism in her stride.

'I forgot,' she said.

Nothing was said to the neighbours, but the underwear was quickly removed from the overhead line.

The man opposite, a thick-set type aged in his 30s, opens his place as a type of makeshift karaoke bar when he is not inspecting his neighbour's washing.

He sells booze, and trades until late. Slum folk – mainly wastrels from the place next to his, who do not work, and trade in drugs - gather there nightly, get drunk, and make noise.

Noise from the karaoke place, and the narrow slum alleyway outside, enters Ball's place freely.

However, the wooden doors of his family home are mercifully thick. If the noise gets too bad, we can close the doors to block it out.

By the next day when I visited, the underwear drama was still going.

‘They just go on and on about it, and won’t let it pass,’ Ball told me.

Nam was spread out on the floor doing her homework.

When she is not in class, she spends most of her time chatting on the phone or playing Facebook, where she has almost 3,000 fans.

Next time, she’ll know better.

One day, however, I might have to deal to the neighbours.

Since they made their complaint, Ball and I have stopped buying our liquor supplies from them.

We used to buy half-bottles of whisky from them, but now take our custom elsewhere.

Once, Ball could just extend his arm across the alleyway when he wanted a bottle. Now, we have to walk out to the main road to buy the brown stuff.

Still, I don’t mind. His neighbours don’t deserve us.

Police visit the karaoke man often, as he has a history of trouble with the men in khaki.

‘I would like to complain about the noise, as they have no licence to open that place or sell booze. We are in a residential area,’ I told Ball.

Residential area? Actually, we are packed in like sardines.

I doubt the folk who live there are used to asserting their rights. They just put up with things.

‘Just let them be...you get used to noise when you live in a slum,’ Ball said.