Spaghetti-strap mosquito menace

BANGKOK (TNA, Gazette): Last year the Ministry of Culture tried to bar Thai women from wearing spaghetti-strap tops during Songkran, with a warning from Culture Minister Uraiwan Thienthong that “revealing clothes may induce sexual harassment”.

It didn’t work. Apart from anything else, police had no support from the law of Thailand for enforcing a ban on the detestable, damaging-to-Thai-culture spaghetti strap.

All they could do was stand and watch, one would imagine with great sadness, as young women snubbed the Ministry’s edict, presumably in an intentional drive to attract sexual harassment.

But the anti-spaghetti-trap culture lives on in the government, and this year the arbiters of moral rectitude are taking a more subtle approach.

In an directive published by the Ministry of Public Health on April 10, young women who favor spaghetti-straps, particularly those made from dark-colored fabrics, were warned that they were putting themselves at risk of being bitten by mosquitoes!

The ministry spokeswoman warned the scantily-dressed women that mosquitoes could attack their bare shoulders, backs or bellies, putting them at risk of contracting dengue fever, malaria or even the dreaded elephantiasis.

The spokeswoman urged them to wear, instead, clothing that covers the skin entirely, in pale shades that are less attractive to mosquitoes.

So next time you see a young woman suffering from elephantiasis, there will be no need to feel sorry for her – she probably brought it on herself through her own stupid insistence on ignoring sensible government advice.