The irrepressible Vithi, the ghost that eats her entrails, and the only honest cop in New York City

Vithi is my neighbour of choice. I'm starting to understand more of her unique cosmological outlook. She comes across a bit like Shakespeare’s Wise Fool, if Shakespeare’s Wise Fool was a septuagenarian Thai lady who ate ice cream all day surrounded by images of a bearded Al Pacino trapped in the Seventies.

Vithi won’t let me take her photo. Whenever I politely ask to do so she points sternly up at her theatrical release poster of Sidney Lumet’s 1973 gritty crime drama.

Above: Venerated Buddhist saint, Al Pacino.

That's the poster Vithi has above her Buddhist shrine. After some probing, Vithi tells me that Serpico is her first line of defence in her ongoing battle with a very malevolent ghost named Phi Pob. She is convinced that Phi Pob is eating her entrails. These types of ghosts hang around old women, making those possessed feign illness during the day and sneak about at night devouring raw chicken meat. I told her that if a demon was actually eating my entrails I wouldn’t consider that feigning illness. She didn’t hit me with the electric fly swatter when I said that because she was too busy waiting at the door for an ice cream cone to be delivered.

I asked Vithi if she had ever seen Sidney Lumet’s 1973 gritty crime drama, Serpico. She said nothing because her ice cream cone had arrived. She ate her ice cream, smiling and patting her stomach. When she had finished she made me buy another Fanta and hit me with an electrified fly swatter. 

Above: Phii Pob. Cruel eater of Vithi's entrails, lover of raw chicken and Serpico's sworn nemesis.

Oh, and Phi Pob also wipes her ass on your laundry while you sleep. So you've also got that to deal with.

Unsurprisingly, with her ice cream and occasional slither of raw chicken diet - not to mention that a devious ghost is eating her entrails - Vithi's conversation has a tendency to have a reoccurring focus on all matters scatological. Enter into the conversation Phii Kee - the magical sanitation ghost.

Vithi told me was to watch out for Phii Kee, because he lives in my building. He's supposedly not too bad a fella; he just has a bad job.

Vithi asked me if I have bad dreams. I said no. Vithi then told me I have bad dreams. This is true. Fiddling with her mobile phone - she texts for ice cream delivery - Vithi told me that after I have a bad dream I have to get up, go to the toilet and defecate immediately. She said that the most crucial part is that you then have to bless the faeces before flushing. She could not stress that part enough. Apparently this act summons Phii Kee. His job is to take your defecation to a happy place, cleanse it of any bad luck and be on his merry way back into his limbo of karmic janitorial purgatory. 

It doesn't take long for Vithi to get sick of me. After the toilet advice, she made me buy another Fanta and told me to leave. She tried to hit me with the electrified fly swatter, but she uses the really crap batteries that she sells to tourists so it runs out of charge quickly. 

I know a guy on Soi 12 who sells cattle prods, but don't know the protocol of buying a seventy-one year old haunted Thai lady riot suppression equipment.