money, it's a gas

I promise, this isn't entirely a self-indulgent whine about how little money I have, how much I deserve, and how much the university should pay me. It's a set of observations; the whininess is unintentional and I apologize for all whining that made it past the self-pity sensor (censor).

Avid readers will recall that Husband and I indulged in the purchase of a washing machine a few months back. We now luxuriate in the doing of our own laundry. Our clothes are in much better shape, and we don't have to walk all around creation with bags of laundry. However, since buying the washing machine, our electric bills have quadrupled. Yes. Quadrupled. We're now paying more for electricity than we ever did in the United States. Even discounting the initial cost of the washing machine and the cost of the detergent and fabric softener, it's costing us TEN TIMES AS MUCH per month to do our own laundry as it was to hire it out.

We have also been making an effort to prepare more of our own food. This is because I am a whiny, picky eater. We still eat a lot of local food, both in restaurants and as takeout, but I have reached the end of my tolerance for fried food that is covered with sugar. Thai food in the United States differs from Thai food in Thailand in three basic ways:

• In America, Thai food is generally considered to be fairly healthy (yes, I know about the coconut milk--but compared to, say, lard, it's not bad). It's stir-fried or simmered with a minimum of oil. In Thailand, though, the curries generally arrive with a quarter-inch of pure grease on top. I haven't been able to skim enough off to relieve the sensation that my food is sliding down a well-greased chute after the first few bites.
• In America, sugar is usually reserved for dessert and for those repulsive sweet-potato-and-marshmallow concoctions that some people eat at Thanksgiving. In Thailand, no dish is complete without a heaping spoonful of sugar. Stir-fries. Curries. Fried rice. Noodles. Soup. Everything is like candy.
• In America, Thai food resembles American-style Chinese in composition: small pieces of meat with large quantities of vegetables like baby corn, peapods, and cute exotic mushrooms. In Thailand, vegetables are not nearly so widely eaten. Many dishes consist of meat, sauce, and rice or noodles.
  

I'm really not complaining. Really, I swear. I'm not. I love Thai food. That's Thailand Thai food and American Thai food. Phed mahk? ("Very spicy?") Bring it on! Coconut milk? The more the better. And the person who decided peanuts are for sauces? Isn't there a Nobel Prize for that? But after a year, I've simply reached a point at which greasy, sugary meat no longer holds the appeal it once did. I needs me my steamed veggies!*

Thus, Husband and I have started to acquire kitchen materials and to shop for groceries at a fairly upscale grocery store in a nearby town. Again, this endeavor is much more costly than going for nightly takeout. A week of groceries (which yields 4-5 meals, plus essentials like coffee and snacks), including the outlay for the taxi ride home (because have you ever ridden a bus with eight plastic grocery bags? A thing that other people find to be perfectly possible; I, on the other hand, can't do it) comes to the equivalent cost of about ten takeout or restaurant dinners. Yep. Costs more to make our own food. And again, this is without considering the initial outlay for the oven, the pans, the kitchen utensils, and the kitchen sink.

What am I driving at? Supply and demand. Some resources in Thailand (like electricity, fresh vegetables, and coffee-for-spoiled-farang) are hard to come by, and therefore expensive. Labor, on the other hand, is dirt cheap. In America, service has to be paid for. One of the hallmarks of "having money" is having people to do things for you. Things you'd otherwise have to do yourself. A cook. A laundress. A housekeeper (which we could also have, for pocket change). A nanny. In Thailand, on the other hand, anything that can be done by a person is cheap. It's the things that will cost you. A total reversal.

*I'd like to accept the Oscar for "most first-person pronouns crammed into one sentence."