Travel Sized Bites.
A selection of short stories submitted by visitors to the site between 500-1000 words
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betsyisms in far off places
By Author: Peter W. Morris
E-mail: petertraveler@usa.net
Submitted on Tuesday 11th December 2001
Betsyisms In Far Away Places By Peter W. Morris, Travel Writer & Photojournalist
You’ve got to know my wife, Betsy, for any of the following to make any sense at all. A mere description won’t suffice, for it’s her rather unique ways of handling the unanticipated—and the I Love Lucy-type escapades she gets herself into—which make life alongside her, well, v-e-r-r-r-y interesting. But, all right, I don’t suppose a brief description wouldn’t hurt. Betsy’s about average height, for a woman, and she’s got a cute little figure...although she’d insist, to anyone dumb enough to inquire, that she’s "chubbied-up" during those years which separate 45 from 50. (She entered maturity believing she was flat-chested and fat; she’s neither.)
But, it’s Betsy’s expressionable face which helps makes her misadventures so memorable, for she’s in possession of cute-as-a-chipmunk features—all topped with dark, somewhat unruly and frustrating (to her) curly hair. And, when she gets flustered, as she often does, her cheeks turn a light shade of red, and she begins to chirp...as in "Oh, oh, oh..." kinda like Curley, of Three Stooges fame.
Perhaps an example might shed light on this woman Betsy, a.k.a. BetsyBear, to those who know and love her (namely, me).
Betsy and I recently completed a seven-week missionary journey to Asia, where our assignment was to photograph various people groups in five countries (China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea & Singapore) for later publication in the States. It was in mainland China, our first stop, that Betsy discovered that pre-potty-trained Chinese children don’t generally wear anything under their clothing. Girls, in dresses, wear nothing; boys, meanwhile, sport a fully-open crotch in their shorts and pants.
"Peter! LOOK! Look at that boy’s cute little butt!" Fortunately, nobody within shouting distance could understand what my dear wife—and thanks to her, me—had discovered about this Pamperless society on the other side of the world.
Well, leave it to Betsy, for in short order she’d actually "stepped in poo" and, being the germ freak she is, was hopping about—doing a little dance with one foot in the air—and chirping in grand fashion. "WhatdoIdo???" came her plaintive cry, "WhatdoIdo!!!"
At this point, I should mention that we were in the company of a wonderful private guide, a 20-something young lady with sparkling eyes and a ready smile. Nothing, however, had prepared her for Betsy. Time stood still as we watched my beloved try to scrape the offending stuff off her shoe; she tried working it on the curb, running her foot through tall grass, using a stick to remove it from her wedged-souls.
Nothing worked, until, that is, Betsy discovered a discarded slice of watermelon on the roadside. Squish, squish, plop, plop. It worked! Our guide, having taken all this in for a good 15-minutes, was hysterical...bent over double with laughter, holding her stomach and doing her best to wipe away tears.
The story, however, does not end here, for Betsy was only able to remove "the really big chunks" with her one slice of melon...she needed more watermelon and soon. Thus our search began, scouring curbside garbage piles in a city whose name we couldn’t even pronounce, one woman hip-hopping, another completely out of control (in a VERY controlled society) and a giant-sized American laden with bulky camera equipment trying to hold the group together.
Picture, if you can, such a trio making their way amidst a procession of fully laden ox-carts, bicyclists bearing goods and passersby, all of whom were starring quizzically as we scoured the gutters for lunch’s leftovers.
This is Betsy.
If this all sounds a lot like fun—never knowing what might come next at the hands of the one you love—RIGHT! The phrase "never a dull moment" might easily have been composed with Betsy in mind. Her stories are legendary.
Our travels throughout the world never fail to add chapters to our continuing sage of Betsyisms. Another recent pilgrimage found us headed into high seas off of the coast of North Carolina, in the area known as The Graveyard Of The Atlantic. The mission here was to fish, nothing more, nothing less. Prone to motion sickness whether on land or atop foam-crested waves, this little lady had come well prepared...pills for seasickness, crackers for warding off nausea-induced seasickness and, perhaps most importantly, she’d convinced herself she was mentally prepared to look seasickness squarely in the face and emerge victorious.
Wrong.
To make a long, and quite miserable, story brief, Betsy got seasick. But did she retreat to a cabin and suffer—quietly—like most victims? No. This sailor wannabe, who’d promised to call it quits only if she had to bait a hook or remove a fish, wound up spewing hash browns, two eggs over-easy, sausage, gravy biscuits, and orange juice while bravely clasping the overhead railing. Every few minutes, she’d heave-ho over the side, leaving the cleanup details to the pounding ocean, which continually slapped her in the face with every dip of the boat.
Betsy, who’d only hours earlier eschewed the idea of getting her hands "all fishy and smelly," lay pathetically to port, not particularly caring if the Atlantic claimed her or not. Soaked to the skin, pale and with blood from a host of aquatic trophies coloring her hair a pleasant shade of auburn, she rode out the storm.
Later, with a subdued twinkle in her eye, she announced, "One minute I was afraid I’d die, the next minute, I was praying that I would."
I’m happy to report, she lived.
In Morocco, Betsy had an encounter with a camel, but no words could possibly describe the image I captured on film; she was half-on and half-off the beast when the shutter was released, her mouth agape and her Tilley hat askew. In Thailand, Betsy had an encounter with a big snake—`bout six-feet of snake, actually—which was more-or-less unceremoniously dumped into our boat as we plied the waters of Bangkok’s Floating Market; the snake and Betsy passed each other in mid-air.
And, in a small town near the Laotian border, Betsy helped in hotel check-out procedures when asked to hail a taxi. The next thing I knew, we were heading to the airport via Tuk-Tuk, which is more-or-less an elongated, souped-up, golf cart. I can still recall the finger’s pointed in our direction and the joyful laughter of the natives as we—and a few hundred pounds of traveling necessities—made our way out of town, the Tuk-Tuk’s rear an inch from scraping pavement and the driver doing his best to keep the front Earthbound.
A particularly horrendous night was spent just after what has become known as The Tuk-Tuk Caper, in a "Where in the world?" place known as Udon Thani, in northwestern Thailand. Lodging with friends, we were informed prior to retiring that we should be on the lookout for a particular type of night-traveling lizard, which made a habit of invading sleeping quarters. "You’ll know if one’s around; they make a loud, clicking sound," we were warned.
That’s all Betsy needed to hear. While you’d think a good Southern farm girl would be used to bugs and other critters, she’s the exception. To put it bluntly, they freak her out, big time.
We’d turned off the light and climbed into bed when Betsy shot boldly upright and declared, "The windows, big cracks, they can get in!" Actually, many of the windows were open, given that the outside temperature was hovering around 90-degrees, with the humidity reaching for 103%. The light was reignited, the windows closed and, for the next 30-minutes, toilet paper stuffed into every crack and crevice.
In bed once again, I laid my head on the pillow, exhausted from the day’s shoot (pictures) of friendly local farmers and wary black oxen. Betsy, meanwhile, climbed into a silk bag she’d crafted prior to the trip...just in case. Moments later, she plaintively looked up, her entire body encased in the bag, with only her eyes visible from deep within her wrappings.
"Click. Click."
The lights went on, well, like a light. "It must have been our imagination," I said. Back to tortured sleep.
"Click. Click. Click." It was louder, thus closer. Lights on, lights out. And so passed the hours. By 3:00AM, it was "Click...click, click, click, click, click." Come morning, we reckoned, we’d be just another victim of Jurassic Park; although we couldn’t locate the monster, it sounded as if we were sharing the bed.
The endless night retains a hallowed place within Betsy’s mental journal. Unbearable heat and humidity; no airy circulation; she wrapped like a museum-bound mummy; and minute-by-minute terrorization by one or more unseen beasties, no doubt out for blood.
"Oh, look, there goes one now," said out host at breakfast the next morning. Betsy, her head partially submerged within the cereal bowl, looked up. "What? Huh?" She scanned the kitchen. "Look, on the wall, there goes one of those lizards we told you about last night."
Sure enough, not 10-feet from our table, scurried a light green, 3-inch long lizard...a sly grin formed from his curved—and toothless—jaws.
"Click. Click. Click."