Thanks
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine

I’m not sure if you read the post immediately before this on, entitled “Going to the Cop Shop” but I detailed the entire incident, including my ugly actions. Here’s a short excerpt:

I lost my balance and fell against the taxi, damaging the side view mirror and the radio antenna. More significant – to me at least – was that the second security guard appeared with a police baton, and took a swing at my head.

At my fucking head!

….

[The guard] looked like he expected me to take the baton from him (which I could have easily done) and beaten him to death with it.
The thought did cross my mind.

But I’m not a violent fellow. Loud, yes. Stubborn, obnoxious, quick tempered? Guilty as charged. Do I exercise bad judgement? Sure, sometimes.

This was one of those times. I absolutely lost it with this guy. I started screaming at him in English – a language he doesn’t speak – telling him to put the damn baton away before it caused him to get hurt, and saying shit like, “Goddamnit, you work for me… you should have been stopping the fucking cab driver, not swinging a fucking baton at my head!”

The fact that he refused to put the baton away just kept me angry, and I bellowed at him for a good long while.

Of course, it woke the neighbors. All of them.

At three in the morning.

So, before you accuse me of whitewashing the facts, go back and read the earlier blog, which I don’t think paints me in a particularly saintly light.

Your assertion that “under Thai law, confiscation of the entire bond is standard practice” isn’t correct. If you want to get me to admit that I’m wrong about that you’ll have to cite the legal wording to me, because I consulted lawyers and did a bit of my own research to conclude that there is no legal basis for this to happen.

I didn’t argue about “eviction”. After being assaulted by the security guards I WANTED to move out. My point is that the landlord takes advantage of situations. I know better than to believe that he can evict me with a one-page letter; other people don’t. I chose not to fight him through legal processes because it wasn’t worth the effort, but that doesn’t mean his actions were legal.

And he knows that his actions lack the force of law as well. When we had a standoff about returning my rent immediately I told him I would simply remain living in the apartment until he went to court and got me evicted — a 4 to 6 month process by all accounts, and he backed down.

I know I was drunk and angry, and the landlord knows that he had no right to move me out with a letter or to take my deposit.

It was easier for him not to fight me and have to evict me through legal processes, and it was easier for me not to fight him and to let him steal my deposit.