Spud talks a lot these days, and listening to her blabber is always a joy!

Since she was a baby, she’s always been tickled by funny noises which we make, particularly the ones which Silver Bullet comes up with. Given Silver Bullet’s knack for coming up with funny-sounding sounds, you can imagine the exposure of “funny sounds” she has been exposed to since!

One of our favourite games is to point at her stomach, belly button , cheeks and nose (sometimes on the forehead), and after naming that certain body parts, we would go “toot”.

And now, she is just imitating us- with sounds, gesture and all; as each time she points to her own body parts, she also goes “toot”. And then flashes us her brilliant smile. (which at some point, we wonder if we had taught her the right thing as it first started out as an amusement)

Which leads me to this story:

After a massive crying fit which started way before she received her jab (she was not too happy being man-handled by the nurses and her pediatrician), I took her to the kids play area at the hospital to calm her down.

She finally calmed down after 10 minutes melt-down, and had independently amused herself on one of the slides. I was just nearby watching her, and not long after, another girl a few years older than her, joined in.

Probably happy to see a friend, she immediately walked over to the girl and smiled. Along with that smile, came that little hand, and with that little hand, out came the index finger ever so slowly going towards the girl’s forehead and as that fingertip touched the girls forehead, Spud immediately went “Toot!”

Now, I did not see that coming! You should have seen the horror look on my face… and at that point, I really did not know if I should laugh or cry!

It was a good thing that I was close by to “remedy” the situation. Hard as it was to suppress my laughter right there and there, I immediately removed Spud’s hand off the girl’s and told Spud gently that she should not do that to a friend. I promptly apologised to the girl…although I am not sure what she had made of it.

As it was almost time to go, I hurried Spud along to meet Silver Bullet at the cashier. It was hard for me to keep a straight face as I related the story to him. He obviously burst out laughing, but right there and there, we both realised that very soon, all those funny sounds and gestures we do out of amusements at the initial stages may not be so funny anymore in the near future.

Oh! Toot.

[Be warned: This is a rant!]

So the government in Thailand has a new rule where a work permit holder will now have to go for a thorough medical check-up before the renewal of work permit and visa for working in this country. Oh! and this is on top of another medical check-up required by my employer’s insurance company which has its own in-house medical practitioner – which means that the insurance is only valid if my clean bill of health is verified by the medical practitioner of that insurance company!

And believe you me, this is the first time in 6 years that I have been required to do this, and as we all know, medical check-ups are nothing but a royal pain in the ass.

The company you work in assigned you to a hospital, you hauled your ass there, you get stuck in traffic, you wait around, you get poked, prodded, and biles of blood taken from you (I hate frickin’ needles!) They take a long time to complete, they mandated that you wait around for the test results, you get stuck in traffic again; and before you know it, your day is a write off!

Forgive me for whinging, but seriously, how many medical checkups do I have to do in a year to fulfill all of these silly obligations of validating my frickin’ visa and work permit?

The most important question is – how does my health bill information provide value to the renewal of visa/work permit to the government body at all? Especially when they are more concerned about me having first and foremost, the most important disease of syphillis and the fact that I am in good physical and mental health with no symptoms of leprosy, tuberculosis, drug addiction, chronic alcoholism and elephantiasis.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but really, what is the point of all these unnecessary information? Does it make their life any better?

And for something completely different – excuse me while I digress: There was this sign at the hospital I was assigned to.

It boggles the mind why in the world would anyone healthy want to chill out in a hospital in the name of fun.

I mean, seriously?!

Only in Thailand.