On Saturday. I went to my homeboy Ot’s shop, Wattana Sound, to get a bigger horn put on the car since it seems to be the only deterrent to the 50,000 students haphazardly riding motor scooters on the local roads.
His worker takes off the steering column cover and leans under to examine wiring bundles. He uses a tester and checks each wire and then inadvertently triggers the driver’s side airbag… POW! The airbag catches him square in the eye and is louder than a tire blowing out (I know this because I was across the street when it happened).
So eventually I return to the shop and Ot is waiting for me and shows me the problem… I make sure the worker is all right (he has a very small cut over his eye) and Ot assures me he will cover the cost for replacement at the Nissan dealer. I tell him that it’s more than just the airbag since the collision system is tied into the seatbelts and active head restraints via computer (actually, it turns out there’s a spring loaded system in the rear seats as well); Ot breaks out some cans of Beer Lao and starts making calls.
Somewhere in Bangkok, the steering assembly for an A33 Cefiro is placed on a truck bound for Mahasarakham, where we will have it installed on Monday.
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On Sunday morning, I am driving Nam to work when I hear this curious vibrating noise between my seat and the car door. I reach under to see what it is and my hand comes back up holding a U-shaped wire hair holder-thingie. Nam immediately demands to know who’s it is, and I’m hard pressed to answer, because I just have no idea… She’s has no reason to be suspicious, really, but then again, neither of us has any idea how the hell a girl’s hair thingie got in my car.
I thought about it all day and a weird scenario evolved in my head… I told Nam about it and she thought I was totally bullshitting, but we went to confirm my theory – we went back to Ot’s car shop. The worker who had been doing the wiring has long hair, and the force of the airbag deploying in his face knocked the hair thingie clear off his head and under the seat. Awesome!
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Yesterday we got the car fixed, so all’s well that ends well, I guess.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Its good to hear that your car is fixed. I know how it feels when car is having a problem. I am in that situation right now. I had no car to use. There had been problems and several parts needs to be replaced (like muffler, fuel tank,etc). sighs.. I hope it would be fixed this weekends. I had some important trip next week and really need the car.
Oh! Boy! You were that close from being part of the statistics on cut dicks in Thailand!
I’m glad you solved the problem.