Snookies Story Pt 2: Mamasanning

We lived happily together until Tom?s wife from England turned up one day at his condo. My Buddha! That was an experience. Talk about being a tigress! Tom?s wife went absolutely ballistic when she found me living with him. I had no option but to move out.

After Tom, I was at a loose end for some time. But one day I happened to meet a friend, John, who was a regular in Soi Cowboy, the beer and Go-Go bar locale off Soi Asok in Bangkok and he asked me to go with him to a beer-bar to give him my impressions of a new girl he fancied there. This I did, meeting John?s prospective new girlfriend, but I wasn?t impressed with her. I thought she was just a gold digger and told John so.
While we were in the beer bar, we got chatting to the boss, a farang called Jim. He asked me what I was doing at the moment, and when I told him I was between jobs, he asked if I would like to work as his cashier as the previous one had been sacked for ripping him off. I thought about it for a while and told him it would be OK as long as I didn?t have to go ?off? with any of the customers. He agreed to my terms and I started work the following day.
I?d only been working with him for a week when his Mamasan left after an argument. Jim asked me if I thought I?d be able to manage his ladies and when I replied yes, he asked me if I?d like to be his new Mamasan and I of course agreed to a month?s trial.
At first, the ladies were very apprehensive of me as I was older and of a higher class than they and from Chiang Mai, whereas they were all from Esarn. However, it wasn?t long before I was able to befriend them, because, basically, I?m a very friendly person and can get along with more or less anyone. It was low season and the girls weren?t in the best of spirits with so few customers.
My first crisis came when two of the girls fought over one particularly handsome young farang, British, as I remember. He was a bit of a sly dog, however, and played the two off against each other. His ultimate goal was to pay as little as possible and get one of the girls to live with him. It turned out that he had promised to take them both home to England and they used to continually taunt each other, making claims of being his favourite. Neither of them charged him any money; he had to pay the bar fine, obviously, but that was all. Eventually, he chose one of them, the most beautiful and we never saw either of them again.
My next crisis concerned a girl who was married to a Thai kick boxer that was incredibly jealous. One day, after making many threats, he came into the bar and assaulted one of the girl?s farang boyfriends, but he?d bitten off more than he could chew because this particular farang was a black belt karate expert. The farang beat the Thai guy to within an inch of his life. Needless to say, the Thai guy wasn?t humbled, but brought three of his friends to sort the farang out. The three managed to inflict some pain on the farang, but he too had friends and we had a really serious vendetta on our hands. The rivals used to stake out the bar, waiting for each other. I decided the best approach was to get the girl in question to persuade the farang to go to Pattaya with the promise of following him after a few days. Thankfully, I was successful otherwise I dread to think what would have happened, but certainly it would have spelled death for one or more of them. The girl did go to Pattaya for a couple of weekends, but then he found a new girlfriend and we never heard from him again, either.
The next problem concerned an American farang who was very reluctant to spend any money at all? Billy Ki Nok, we called him. He used to sit in the bar every night nursing one drink and never bought a lady drink. We tried every ploy in the book to persuade him to part with his money, but to no avail. That was, until he met Joy, a newcomer to the bar from Burriram. She completely won his heart and he changed into a completely different person. He?d obviously been waiting for the right person, He spared absolutely no expense, buying Joy expensive presents of gold and all the cuddly toys she could carry. The street seller of cuddly toys must have made a small fortune because Joy?s room was filled from floor to ceiling with bears, dogs, turtles and elephants; so much so that you couldn?t move for them ? just as well she liked cuddly toys! However, she sold them all and all her gold when Johnny-not-so-Ki-Nok returned to America. She made enough money that she was able to take a holiday in Burriram for three months.
My final bit of trouble at the particular bar we?re talking about ? sorry, no names ? involved a girl who fell madly in love with a farang customer. She had never really been in love before, and you know what they say, women only ever fall in love once in their lives. Well, this was definitely the one for her and for the month that her farang remained in Thailand, she was in heaven. When he returned to Germany, she was totally distraught. Moping about all day with a long face and refusing to entertain any other customer. One morning, we heard that she was in hospital having tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. Luckily, the paramedics had caught her in time and she recovered and returned to her home in Khon Kaen. I heard later that she?d recontacted her German boyfriend and was about to go and live with him in Germany.
About a week later, I asked my boss for a holiday as the previous 3 months had really taken it out of me. I never returned to his bar, but that?s another story.

Story by Snookie
Translated by Warina