Hot Stuff

Written in Kelantan Malaysia, where I was living in a small kampong house. Having rented out my nice house in Johor Baru, and living on that rent. The rest of my money had gone into my wife's Singapore account to pay for her treatment while in coma.

The words just wouldn't come at the computer, and I was flat broke, with an empty fridge. So I reminisced about Liz once more. She was so full of life before the coma, it's a double tragedy for her to end up this way.  Once when we stayed at Ceasar's Palace in Las Vegas, she was mad because we were leaving the day before Tom Jones was due to perform. Cher was on, but she wanted Tom Jones - I think Cher's quite talented myself.

 

As consolation Liz made an appointment at the hotel hairdressing salon. She was there for five hours(!) before I received a call on the house phone to pick her up. When I saw her I nearly fell over - her hair was frizzed out all over the place. I said "My God Liz, there are negro women in this country who pay a fortune to get that OUT of their hair!" It didn't faze her one little bit.

 

In Puerto Vallarta Mexico (where we visited The Love Boat), we were sitting in the open-sided restaurant at the edge of the beach eating lunch. Liz asked the waiter for HOT chili sauce and was unhappy with what he brought.  "I want hot chili sauce, this isn't hot." The waiter raised his eyebrows, and returned with the sauce boat five minutes later, hanging around to watch the (he thought) explosive result. Liz tasted a big spoonful and said "That's no good, all you did was empty a bottle of Tabasco into it - I want real hot chili sauce." The waiter departed, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

The same sort of thing happened at a Thai restaurant in Sydney, where I told the waitress "If my wife's chili seafood is too hot, that's my fault, if not hot enough, your fault, okay?"

They couldn't resist a challenge like that. When the food arrived, it was followed by the cook, who wanted to witness the consumption. It was so hot he had been scared to test it himself. Liz ate the lot, with the comment not bad at all, the best she's had in Australia. Two years later I was in Sydney for a meeting with the Coal Board Tribunal, in the company of the President of the Combined Miners' Union. He wanted to eat Thai food, so I took him to the same place. The owner remembered the small beautiful woman who could eat the hottest chili, and sent out for takeaway containers, so I could take some special chili seafood back to Brisbane for her. They don't normally serve takeaways at all.

 

In Brisbane I won many magnums of champagne on Liz's ability to eat the hottest chilis. One earthmoving machinery parts dealer reckoned his sister in Cairns grew the hottest chilis in Australia, which NOBODY could eat raw. He went to the trouble of having her airfreight a tube of them to Brisbane. When they arrived he hot-footed it to my place, and hung around for the moment of his triumph. Liz chewed away, until they were all gone, as Paddy's eyebrows grew closer and closer to the sky.

 Then Liz asked

"When are the hot ones coming Paddy?" We shared the magnum.

This same Paddy and I had a few run-ins, as he supplied most of the wear parts for my bulldozers, and I liked to take my time paying. Sometimes I would toss a coin in his office. If he called right, I would pay the bill up to date, if not, it went out to 90 days. One day when he lost, he passed the comment that it was no wonder I could afford the beautiful lined leather jacket I was wearing. I took it off there and then, and exchanged it for the work jacket he was wearing. That guaranteed the 90 days.

 

One day when I was in an unusual hurry at payment time, I signed all of the cheques presented by my secretary without checking them individually - not a normal habit of mine. Three days later, when I got round to entering the cheques in my private ledger, I almost had apoplexy. I had signed a cheque bringing Paddy right up to date.

 

I promptly wrote him a letter, together with an order form for dozer grouser plates and a couple of idlers for a D9. The letter went something like  "Dear Paddy, I very much regret that, due to a most unfortunate oversight on my part, your bill has been paid up to date. In order to rectify this deplorable situation as quickly as possible, please find enclosed an order for supply of parts, for which I promise not to pay in less than 90 days."

 

He sent the letter to head office in Perth, with the comment 'see the crazy people I have to deal with here.' They framed it and hung it on the office wall - and I got my 90 days.

 

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Oh my, chili can be a real gut killer!

Firstly, what a great introductory paragraph.

Whilst the content's more than probably true, I've so enjoyed your chatty style of story telling. The words are naturally put, there aren't any ridiculously long words or unuseful phrases. There are some excellent prose writers/story tellers in the Cafe, there's now another. Fine writing, thanks for sharing.

[Zeek4]

I love these kinds of stories about real life happenings. Your wife sounds like quite a character. I know how hot that Thai food can get. I'm sorry for the tragedy in your life.
The only thing I would change is getting rid of the last part about Paddy. It seems out of context with the rest of the story.