To outsiders, “pastrygate” must seem like a big deal: a “bribe” equal to over 10 times what the average Thai earns in an entire year delivered in a box of khanom to the Supreme Court. But we take it with our usual grain of rice, and the only part of the story we fi\nd hard to believe is that the offi cial who accepted the box didn’t sample some of the pastries before handing it back.

   There are some who say that the lawyer who dropped off the dough is connected to our former PM. Others say that it was a plot, that we’re supposed to think that puppetmaster T is behind pastrygate, when in fact it’s either the PAD or Prem or someone else whose name begins with “P.” But we like another theory, which we overheard in the bathroom the other day after a particularly spicy plate of somtum poo plaa raa, that this is another scenario created by the government in order to scare us off cash. Yeah, they hate the (potentially) untraceable, untaxable stuff.

   Their goal is to make us think that cash is for suckers, that it’s dangerous, inconvenient, dirty and not at all sexy. Credit cards, on the other hand, are super sexy. They’re also easy to get, good for discounts at gas stations and give you the false hope that you might win a condo close to the BTS. See what we’re getting at? Credit cards address every issue the government is trying to tackle and more. Forget coupons, soaring gas prices, low-cost housing poverty and infl ation. Better living through plastic. The anti-cash propaganda team’s latest effort is the aptly named “swipe” card. Ooh, aren’t they cool? Aren’t they convenient? Can’t sign your name? No problem! Don’t have a (legal) source of income? No problem!

   They sound so innocent (and fun!), but beware. Let’s just say that it’s a lot easier and cheaper to issue swipe cards to everyone than it is to embed microchips in our foreheads. But back to that “bribe.” The thing is, if it had been a huge box of Rotiboy before the Silom branch opened, we might accept that it was an actual graft attempt. But a measly B2 mil? No judge we know can be bought with so few zeroes.

   We’re used to cash turning up all over the place—in the back of taxis, in mattresses, in jars, in blue pipes and, yes, boxes of sweets— but we don’t automatically assume the money must be linked to something illegal. We just fi gure, “There’s another fella who doesn’t trust the banks.” Or at least someone who had his last run-in with a tedious little worm of an assistant bank manager and his schoolboy logic. Look at what happened with our ex-PM. The banks have been sitting on B65 billion of his hard-earned cash for over a year now. That’s a lot of pastries.