happiness CAN be bought

for cheap, even. little doses of happiness that keep you going. for me, a bowl of sour/spicy pig innards soup (30baht) or a slushee and a hot dog (32baht).

today, i watched someone experience their noon-time happiness.

i was sitting with my neighobor in her little mom and pop mini-mart (next to my house) when a leathery looking man with a hard face rolls up on his motorcycle and roughly says, "10 baht."

she gets up, pours him a small cup (perhaps about 3shots) of shite rice whiskey (and i know from hub night experience that it's shite. but passable when mixed with 7-Up) and gets him a cigarette. he drinks the whiskey with a grimace, takes the cigarette and hands my neighbor 1baht.

is the cigarette 1baht, i ask.

no, the cigarette is 3baht. two pieces of candy for 1baht... i belatedly notice him unwrapping a mint... he lights his cigarette, hops back on his motorcycle and bids us a farewell with a slight crack of a smile.

i turn to my neighbor and say: 14baht, happy.