"You should have paid it on time"

It's incredible to think that since we've been in Thailand we have not received a single letter from anyone. As missionaries, we were on a first-name basis with the mailman, we knew exactly when he should arrive each day, even though he was usually late. With the advent of email, blogs, and long-distance internet technologies such as Skype, we no longer need the post to keep in touch with friends or family. Our mailbox is a sad and lonely place filled only with advertisements from grocery stores, updates from the housing authority, or (yawn) the occassional bill. Now, I traditionally ignore the mail and everything in it, so I'm really not sure what comes through that box. But I was aware of one thing that hadn't appeared yet - the electrical bill.

When we passed the two-month anniversary in our apartment and still hadn't received any correpondence from the power company, I became slightly less apathetic. After all, it is customary in most societies to exchange goods or services for money, and electricity was the service that fueled our air-conditioners, and the air-conditioner was the one thread that tied our fraying marriage together. A gap in our power supply could mean separation as Kaddi returned to California, which would mean I'd have to give Fulbright back their family allowance stipend, which would mean I'd have to make up the difference by working as pole-dancer at a Japanese sushi bar. In the face of such potentially catastrophic outcome I decided there was only one possible course of action: ignore the problem and hope it somehow worked itself out. This approach (practiced in Japan as the Shaino-suka method of crisis management) has served me faithfully for over a decade of marriage.

By the time we did get our notice, I realized I may have to change tactics. Thai bills are a mess of words, numbers, abbreviations, ledgers, and acronyms. Just imagine trying to read your AT&T bill in a non-western language (I can hardly read mine in English). Although I couldn't decipher everything, I did understand three very important words at the top: Warning, Cut-off, and electricity. Since the we had not yet made the acquaintance of Thailand's Power Authority, I thought this quite a rude manner of introducing themselves, but it didn't change the fact that we now had a serious problem. I knew that most people paid their utility bills at 7-11, (is there anything you can't do there?) so I immediately put on my red baseball cap, hopped on my kiddie bike and pedaled my way down to the local candy store. When I handed my Notice to Disconnect to the store clerk and asked if I could pay it she immediately drew back in horror.

"You can't pay this here," she said. "They're going to cut off your power in three days, so now you have to go to the utility authority down in Bangkok. You should have paid it on time."

*sigh*

The only thing better than hearing that you've just been enrolled in a Thai version of the Amazing Race, where you have to find the utility company and pay the bill before they cut off your electricity (which may initiate divorce proceedings)...is getting that news PLUS advice about paying your bills on time. If The Mack Strate was a hero in a Thai comic book, his nemesis would definitely be the pretentious 7-11 clerk. Actually, that's pretty lame. I'll have to think of something better.

There was nothing left for me now but to return home and try to call the power company on the telephone. This was always an adventure, because in Thailand even officially listed numbers only work about half the time. They just changed many of the area codes so that now you have to dial '8' in between the first two digits to connect. Also, when you call a gigantic, amorphous corporation like the utility company, you have no idea who will pick up the phone, or even who to ask for. I decided to try try my luck in English first and pull out Thai as a last resort. Sometimes you just get tired of trying to accomodate others by speaking their language and want people to start accomodating you. After hitting my head on every branch in the phone tree, I finally managed a conversation oscillating between Thai and English and discvered that there were multiple locations where I could petition the power company to extend my electricity privileges, including one near the National Library in the Thewet (thae-wade) district. Things were looking up.

When I got off the river-taxi the next day the first thing I needed was a tuk-tuk driver who could tell me where the utility office was and possibly even take me there. As you come down the pier ramp on to the street, there is a row of tuk-tuks on one side and motorcycles on the other, waiting to transport people to their office, class, whatever. This also mean there is also a crowd of tuk-tuk drivers standing around waiting to either help or harrass you depending on their mood. I approached the group and explained that I needed someone to take me to the power company so that I could pay my bill.

"You don't need to go to the power company," he said, "Just pay it at the 7-11 there on the corner."

There are times when you really don't feel like giving you life's account to a tuk-tuk driver, but in this instance I knew my marriage hung in the balance. So I explained that it was a past-due notice and that they were going to cut our power and I just needed to get to the electric company office.

"Oh," he said, "I don't know of any office around here. You should have paid it on time."

This fatherly wisdom echoed in my mind as I walked down to a main road to find a taxi who would hopefuly have more than financial advice to offer me . I jumped into the first cab to come by and explained my situation:

"I need to go to the electric company to pay my bill AND I CAN'T PAY IT AT 7-11 because it's past-due."

It must be that everyone in Thailand is smart enough to pay their bills on time, becaue nobody, not even a taxi driver who earns his living driving around Thewet, knew where the utility company (which ended up being three blocks away) was located. As we drove around I made the mistake of showing the driver the notice in the hopes that he might recognize the logo or name or something....anything. Armed with this symbol of my procrastination, he proceeded to stop the taxi at nearby store to ask for directions. For the next few minutes I felt like a living exhibit in the Museum of Bad-Credit Consumers. One by one passers-by would stop, look at the collection notice, frown, turn to stare at me trapped in the taxi, look back at the notice, and shrug as if to say "The only way to really help these people is to just let them be." By the time we found someone who knew where it was located, the entire district knew we were behind on our bills.

Once I finally got to the utility company it was rather anti-climactic. I once again by-passed the waiting protocol by being tall, white, and incoherent - and within five minutes I was up at the window paying my money. On the way back to the library I walked a little taller knowing that both my research tenure and my marriage had been prolonged for at least another month.

But since that day every store within a mile radius of the National Library has refused me credit.