(More) Prozac and the Pattaya Police
My depression was now getting back to the levels before my first visit to the doctor, but fortunately I had my first visit to the psychiatrist later in the morning. After a 30-minute initial conversation with the psychiatrist, he was also convinced I had depression. Did they think this was some kind of act and that I was trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes? An increase in my Prozac dosage from 20mg to 40mg was prescribed. I undertook some blood tests for hormone levels and suchlike with the results being available by the time of my next visit.
On returning to the hotel, Mrs. Boss announced she had spoken to sundry people concerning the building works next door and these included a lawyer who would take action to recover all or part of our lost income suffered over the previous ten weeks or so. I listened with half an ear open and believed that these protestations would likely have the same affect that the announcements of the previous days had received — none at all!
As I endeavoured to explain my meeting with the psychiatrist to Mrs. Boss, all I received was a two-minute hearing followed by 30 minutes of her telling me what was wrong with me — possibly something that I really did not want or need at that particular juncture. Everything then turned to her, how tired she was, how ill she was, how fed up with working she was and on and on. I know without being told that my dear wife is all of the things she described but this was me time, a moment or two for her to listen to and, hopefully, sympathize with my condition.
Eventually, the police did arrive at our hotel and visited the next door premises — now the scene of constant banging, drilling and jack hammering for over two months. Their presence certainly put the fear of whatever into several of the labourers, who were seen running in any and every direction — one can only presume most of them to be foreign workers without the necessary permits. After a brief inspection the officers came into the hotel accompanied by the site foreman and then, a few minutes later, my dear friend Dick joined the party. Mrs. Boss was having a high old time with the police officers and haranguing the site foreman, I therefore kept well out of the way semi-hiding in my office and completely out of the assembled group’s view. Confronted by the police, Dick was rather more penitent than he had been during his previous visits to our establishment. A flurry of sorry, sorry, sorry hardly cut the mustard with Mrs. Boss though and, clearly with the upper hand, she announced that we would be taking him to court. We would be seeking damages for our loss of income from early November with this figure now close to 500,000 baht, and rising.
For their part, the police contented themselves with taking all relevant information concerning Dick and his partner, an American I believe. Full names, addresses and mobile numbers were given and a copy of their passports requested, to be handed in at the local police station within 24 hours. Dick did his best to try and defend his position — his foreman had been sick, the previous workmen had just walked off site and so forth. He even suggested that the original agreement with myself was that they work from 1:00PM to 9:00PM daily, although omitted to mention that this conversation had related to a two-week period rather than ten-week-plus period of noisy works. The police remained impassive and insisted that no banging, hammering, drilling or so forth be carried out prior to 1:00PM each day and that such works must cease by 6:00PM at the latest. Failure to adhere to these regulations would see the site closed down and a considerable fine imposed.
Now, even with the smallest, tiniest, minutest brain on the planet, you would imagine that the police were not having a joke and you would take on board every word they had uttered. Well, not Dick and his chums. 9:00AM the following morning and the bloody jackhammer was in full swing once again! Staggered was something I was beyond, I simply could not believe that these morons had just completely and utterly ignored everything and carried on as usual. With Mrs. Boss taking the morning off, it was left to me to once again visit our neighboring building site and hurl a barrage of abuse at the gawping workers, none of whom I am sure understood a single word I said. Words alone, however, were not necessary and my anger itself seemed to get the message across even before I started shouting, “Police come here now! police come here now!!!” to hammer my point home.
Miraculously, two whole days followed without so much as a nail being banged into a wall before 1:00PM. How much longer would this last was the question always on my lips. The answer was, ironically two days as the next morning at 9:15AM the drilling started, followed 30 seconds later by the hammering and ten seconds further, my bad temper. I have, once again, simply given up, there is nothing I can do, that is legal anyway, so I will just have to wait and see if Mrs. Boss and her chums can come to the rescue.
