If it's Monday, this must be yellow

Another Monday morning, another sea of yellow (mostly polo) shirts. When I first moved here, close to two-thirds of the Thais I'd see on Mondays would be wearing these shirts to honor His Majesty The King Rama IX Bhumipol Adulyadej The Great. (Yellow is the color of Monday, and HMTKRIXBATG was born on a Monday.)

Now the percentage of those wearing yellow shirts is down to about half. Like a lot of things here, I don't know what accounts for the decrease.


I should be wearing blue and orange today. As was prophesied, Da Bears gave the New Orleans Saints a taste of hell (as if Katrina weren't enough!) to secure a spot in the SuperBowl against icky old Indianapolis.

The victory put me in a Chicago frame of mind, so I decided to forgo my usual lunch of 25baht dumplings from the minimart in the basement and find a real Chicago hotdog. OK I knew it wouldn't be a real Chicago dog, but the 7th floor at Central World is supposed to have every Western goody known to man, and I figured I could get a reasonable facsimile. Sure enough, the deli restaurant had a sign advertising Hamburger (70baht) and Hot Dog (50 baht).

"Hot dog, please." The yellow-shirted girl stared at me as if I'd ordered fried king on rice.

"Moment, please." She returned with another yellow shirt.

"Hot dog, please."

The second shirt turned to the first, speaking loudly. "Hot dog. Madame want HOT DOG."

"Moment, please!"

"Moment" turned into five minutes, two more yellow shirts and a seemingly endless supply of confusion. Finally, a baguette was located and sliced. This was placed, with a long wiener, onto a completely cold grill. A boy tried to put some lettuce on the grill. "No lettuce, please. Onion." He gave me a frightened look and scurried off.

Five minutes later, people were still coming by and periodically poking at the forlorn frankfurter.

"The grill is OFF."

"Moment, please!"

I couldn't leave, because they'd cut open the baguette and they had me surrounded. "Microwave," I said loudly into the sea of yellow. "Put it in the MICROWAVE. Thirty seconds."

Three minutes ("TAKE IT OUT NOW") later, the poor bundle was released. The onion slices and ketchup couldn't conceal its trauma. "Mustard?" I asked hopefully.

"Moment, please!"

"Mustard." I gestured to their shirts. "Mustard. YELLOW."

They stared at me sadly. "No have yellow, madame. No have."