Contrary to my prediction, she who must be obeyed calls me to tell me that the official registration plate for my truck is now ready and I can go to Mitsubishi to pick it up.
I know the drill by now. A new number plate in Asia is, by default, “lucky”. Depending on the number, it may also be a “good”. No doubt, she who must be obeyed will have already checked.
“Is it a good number?”, I enquire. Apparently it is, and she lists a range of exciting things that are going to happen to me once this number is stuck on my truck. I will become richer, more healthy and my genitals are going to increase in size. Or something like that, I wasn’t really listening.
“And I suppose you have told your mother?”, is my next question. She confesses she rang her mother before she called me; so that the entire extended family can get right onto the task of wasting hundreds of baht buying lottery tickets bearing my registration number; which is deemed “lucky” because it is new.
This is not a Thai phenomenon. I was working in Kuala Lumpur and was late to work after a minor accident which featured a taxi that tried to insert itself into my rear bumper. My staff came rushing into my office, I assumed to check that I had suffered no injury. But no, they wanted to know my registration number so they could buy lottery tickets. Apparently, all the bad luck that accumulates when you drive a care is driven out if you have an accident. So new cars and crashed cars are equally lucky. So is sticking a pin in a telephone book and choosing a number at random; but not as much fun.
So what’s my new number? 5642. Go on, buy a ticket, you never know….