Spot the Potential Lawsuit 8

Loyal reader, you will of course remember the "Spot the Potential Lawsuit" game. In Thailand, it's just too freakin' easy. Open eyes. Look left. Spot two or three. Look right. Repeat. Since I never tire of this game, I offer you three quick shots in the category "cauldrons of boiling oil (or water)."


On Sunday evening, I and every other ambulatory human in Chiang Mai went to "Thanon Khun Dtern," literally "Street People Walk." The Walking Street is the best reason to live in Chiang Mai. Each Sunday beginning at 5pm, 2.5 km of city streets are closed to vehicular traffic and vendors and food purveyors line the sidewalks. This means Sunday dinner is always eaten on bamboo sticks and from banana leaf dishes (more on that soon).


It also means gallons and gallons of boiling palm oil and water sit just inches from the finger tips and skirt hems of passers-by. And, the Little Man doesn't get it. Thai kids grow up with these open hazards and mostly steer clear. My Little Man is not so savvy, so he rides safely in his little stroller a good meter or more from this potential lawsuit, happily jabbing his bamboo stick into gobs and gobs of sticky, sweet "khanom Thai" (Thai dessert).

Spot the Potential Lawsuit 7

Oh, a blog is a hungry beast. It snarls and hisses at you in the most nasty way if you do not feed it, and feed it often. Before this little guy leaps off the screen and bites the hand that feeds it, I offer you this.

Yes, another Spot the Potential Lawsuit. This one, the cauldron-of-boiling-oil variety seen daily on every block in the city. Oh, Thai people do love a good dose of anything deep-fried in palm oil. Yes, palm oil. A completely un-dietarily-reconstructed culinary culture, for sure. And, the deep frying (as with all cooking) is done outdoors, usually right on the curb inches away from passing pedestrians and baby strollers. But, we cheerfully take the risk because the reward is sweet.

Deep fried "sugar banana" and taro (totally skippable, if you ask me). Oh, those bananas. But, not often. Really. They'll kill yah, even if the cauldron of boiling oil doesn't tip over on you.

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I simply cannot be stopped. The Spot the Potential Lawsuit game is just too damn entertaining. Today, I offer you another in the category of vehicular-accidents-waiting-to-happen, also known as if-you-can-weld-it-you-can-drive-it.


What we have here is, well, almost inexplicable. There was once a motorcycle in there somewhere. It morphed into a three-wheel, rear-drive sedan chair with a lovely and practical over-arching canopy frame. And, of course, the previously examined make-do hitch, making possible the tow-along cart.

The whole rig is, indeed, the most ambitious of all the recycle men in the neighborhood. God forbid, a stray dog darts in front of him. It'll be a game of pick-up sticks.

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Ok, so I have no restraint. It's been a Spot the Potential Lawsuit kind of week, and these are just the ones that I manage to get photos of. So many more of these lawsuits are zipping by on motorbikes and overloaded trucks, but my reaction time is a little dulled by the stroller.


Here, my handsome husband demonstrates a "Potential Lawsuit" that even he thought was funny. Two boards pounded into the sidewalk for no apparent reason. He missed the perfectly positioned "head banger" by about ten inches as we rounded the corner engrossed in conversation (with heads down pushing the stroller).

Spot the Potential Lawsuit 4

Remember, I'm exercising incredible restraint in the Spot the Potential Lawsuit game. But, the (new) mother in me just couldn't walk past this one.


I don't know what freaks me out more, the exposed rusty bolts or the jagged, rusty metal. Let's not even talk about the projecting steel pipes and sheet metal corners.


This is one of three public places that I've found for kids to play, and this is the GOOD one. (sigh)

Spot the Potential Lawsuit 3

Thai people, like my kin of New England ancestry, have a can-do attitude. It's not really about DOING much, it's more along the lines of "use it up - wear it out - make do (heard that a lot growing up) - or do without." And, with this in mind, I offer you this week's Potential Lawsuit of the vehicular variety (another vast and limitless category).

I call this one, the "make-do hitch." Old rope, rubber strips cut from some old inner tubing, a little spit ... you know. If duct tape weren't so "spendy," it would be on there for sure. Tapin' that cart right to the damn seat.


Another favorite "make-do" hitch is to sit you wife down on an old rice bag folded around the pull-bar of your cart. Works great, but lose the cart, lose the wife! No fuss. No one's gonna sue you over it, or anything.

Spot the Potential Lawsuit 2

This week's featured black hole of death (with a paw and baby making a safe get-away).


Sorry, this game is hugely amusing to me. (If you need a primer on the Lawsuit game, check out my first Spot the Potential Lawsuit post.)

Spot the Potential Lawsuit 1

My friend Jennifra and her husband John, who is an attorney, have a little game they play called "Spot the Potential Lawsuit." A few years ago, Jennifra and I were both spending part of the winter in Thailand studying massage, and John planned to join her for a beach holiday after our course. She contacted him from Chiang Mai and warned him that they would not be playing "Spot the Potential Lawsuit" in Thailand. The reason being, there is a potential lawsuit every ten feet.

So, I offer you the first (in a bottomless pit of) entries in "Spot the Potential Lawsuit," a game which I amuse myself with (daily).



At least they painted the bamboo red and white. Kept me from falling in feet first.



And, if you have a keen eye, you will have noticed that this Potential Lawsuit is indeed just ten feet away from the first entry.

Your correspondent from the land without liability law.