As summer draws near, and the gubernatorial election fades from our memories, there’s a sweet feeling that bacteriologically unsound buckets of water, overturned pickups and sexually confused teenagers flashing their nipples are just around the corner. We can feel it in our very bones. Simply having lunch knocks us out for the rest of the day, as we stumble about sundrenched streets in a confused daze, slurping up somtam and coconut ice cream, not necessarily in that order. All the signs are already here: the food-borne illnesses (and subsequent hours spent looking out the toilet window), the ripening stench of tourists on the BTS, the overall marked drop in productivity in every office, restaurant and police department…

Sure, there’s still stuff going on. These past weeks, CP got accused by the Brits of plundering the ocean in order to feed its shrimp farms. The Mercedes bus stop killer was sentenced to zero days in jail. The Ferrari Red Bull cop killer saw his dossier sluggishly pushed along from the police station to the judge, a mere six months after the accident. Oh and we were told to stop smuggling animals and ivory. Did anyone give a shit? Of course not. Summer is around the corner—why, even Yingluck escaped to Europe.

At this point in the year, one must either go shopping in Hong Kong or move in slow, controlled gestures, so as to avoid breaking into a sweat. Attempting to do any more would be pure folly. And as much as we’d love to save elephants, encourage shrimp to switch to a vegetarian diet, or picket courts to throw rich kids in jail, this will all have to wait for the end of the low season. Freshened up by the October rains, our give-a-fuck capacities may return (well, don’t hold your breath), but in the meantime, we’ll just stand closer to the fan and sip on a tall glass of single origin, sustainably farmed, organic, fair-trade, iced coffee. See, we do care a little!
 

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