Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Thai'ed Up
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.23.2011
Amani and Marcus are at the bus station, getting tickets on a 5:30 bus to Bangkok. Bill and Cathi show up and get seats on the same bus. "Let's ride, Bussie," Marcus says as they board. Ernie and Cindy also get to the station, but their problems aren't over. Now, I totally misrepresented this scene in the recaplet, because Ernie and Cindy, who are not crazy, end up getting so indignant (and feeling bad about it afterwards) that I assumed they were in the right. Which, as we're about to see, is not actually the case. Anyway, their driver is refusing to take their American money for the fare, and is asking the same 4,500 baht that Jeremy and Sandy's driver demanded. Cindy sticks a hundred American dollars in the driver's hand and they rush inside to the ticket windows, but the driver looks after them like, "This isn't over." Which it's not, because they generously handed him about two-thirds of what they actually owe. Sure enough, the driver catches up to them at the ticket window just as they're trying to get tickets on the 5:30 bus and insists, "4,500 baht." Ernie points out the $100 in the driver's hand and says, "That's much more." I think he's just mistaken and not actually trying to rip the dude off, because it's not like Ernie has never been mistaken before. The driver refuses, and out of nowhere, some woman in a green polo shirt is at Ernie's elbow, insisting they pay in Thai money. "Who are you?" Ernie demands, and keeps trying to give the money back to the driver while the woman -- I assume a supervisor of some sort -- shakes her head insistently. "Come on, you were a terrible driver!" Cindy yells at the cabbie. She says, "You take it, we're going." The supervisor agreeably nods, "I call police for you, okay?" Whoa, shit just got real. Cindy says they don't have time to exchange the cash, so the woman tells them to pay 150 dollars. Which is, you know, pretty much what everyone else had to pay. Just to get out of there, they hand over the cash and end the transaction with loud complaints about how they "did that to us" and Ernie's restatement that "You're a terrible driver." Well, it's not like they overtipped him. After the leg, Cindy admits, "It's not our finest hour. That behavior is not acceptable in our lives, but the race is so stressful." Oh, come on, it was kind of funny. At least Ernie seems to think so. As to whether they realized their mistake after the fact, it's not ever addressed. For now, they're on their bus, which Marcus and Amani see leaving from theirs, which isn't moving yet. "Come on, Bussie!" Marcus yells. Maybe I should have called them Team Catchphrase.