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Published: July 16th 2017
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Geo: 16.3833, 103.933
Into Phon Thong this morning to possibly buy some bedroom furniture. We come away with bed, mattress, wardrobe and dressing table, all of which will be delivered later this morning. We buy some garden shears for our hedge and a few more bits and pieces and another fun morning's shopping is complete.
The furniture arrives strapped into the back of a pick-up just after midday. What the boss at the shop hadnt told us was that he employed Laurel & Hardy to do his deliveries and assembly. The next few hours could have been a remake of any number of their sketches - the piano and the carpenters spring to mind !!
Firstly they were amused that the drill bit was a magnet for the small screws and playing with that kept them going for 1/4 hour. Then they had to assemble the base of the bed and the problems started. Firstly they realised they had not brought all of the pieces so the one guy set off back to Phon Thong on an hours return trip to pick up some metal braces. The chap who is left thinks he will continue on his own but as I stand watching it
is obvious that he hasnt got a clue where to start. Then I notice that there is a lump of wood (MDF) hanging off of the headboard and point this out to him. Oh thats alright he tells us, we had a little accident on the way here but I will stick that down with some tape before we leave. I told them that wasnt good enough and I wanted it to go back to the shop and be replaced. He looked at me in amazement and Jai explained that I was a farang and the gist of the argument seemed to be that if I had been a Thai, to have a lump hanging off of a new bed wouldnt have been a problem at all.
Eventually his mate comes back and the argument starts up again with idiot No1, lets call him Stan, finally heading off in the pick-up with the offending piece of wood to fetch a replacement leaviong idiot No 2, Ollie ?, to continue with the job. There is slow progress but 1 1/2 hrs later Stan returns on a motorbike without any headboard at all. They do not have another bed like this one in the shop what do we want them to do ? I tell them to take the whole bed back to the sho; and tomorrow we will come into Phon Thong and pick out another one. Ollie isnt too keen on this idea as finally he has almost completed the bed assembly. They suggest using a piece of wood that is a slightly different colour. The bed is a very light wood and the 'slightly different colour' turns out to be black ! This is a non starter. I tell them that I have friends coming to stay later this week and need the bed now and if they cant help then just takethe whole thing away and we will buy a bed somewhere else. Time for Stan to phone the boss who will drive out to see us shortly.
About 17:00 a none too happy boss' daughter arrives. She is a big girl and scares me but launches into Stan & Ollie as soon as she is out of the truck. She is apologetic and we reach a compromise. They put the broken piece of wood back, repaired with purple sticky tape !, and they will bring a replacement piece as soon as they can - about a week. She appreciates that if the replacement isnt forthcoming it will be the last they see of our business.
I definitely need a beer tonight and I gues that STan & Ollie are quite pleased to be going home as well !!! "Thats another fine mess ..." brilliant !
Check out the following videos I took of Stan & Ollie in action ...
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