I have so many cringe worthy moments being a Black guy living in Thailand. For instance my girlfriend has to always tell our two year old that every Black man he sees is not Daddy (there are very few here). Also I have had to tell a lot of people that I do not know Barack Obama. (No we do not all know each other).

One of the worse was when I forgot to put the hose down on the washing machine which is located in one of the bathrooms here. I did my usual and put in the clothes, turned the thing on, and left to eat lunch. My girlfriend was out of town so only me around. When I came back to our apartment and turned the corner from the elevator, I was on autopilot and had no idea for about five feet that I was in about an inch of water in the corridor. I looked down and thought the cleaning people must have left the floor half mopped. It was not until I was about ten feet from my unit when it all hit me. I opened the door and water came rushing out (apparently washing machines will just keep going if the water level never says the water is out). Because the hose was not down it keep putting in and pushing out new water. The worse part is apparently the apartments are designed to push the water into the hallways so they are built with a slight slant.

I called my girlfriend and asked her what I should do because the entire corridor was flooded. She said I have to face the music. So I went downstairs to the office, took the lady there by the hand. (My Thai is not that good). Took her in the elevator (she had no idea what was going on). And then when we got to my floor and turned the corner from the elevators she saw it: THE FLOOD. She got on the phone and called maintenance and there was a small army of people in one minute there with mops and towels. Every maintenance person in the building (about 9 people) was there and wanted to see what the stupid foreigner had done. I took them all into the bathroom and acted out what I did and when they all got it, they began pointing at me and laughing hysterically. One guy laughed until he cried. Five minutes later my girlfriend called me and said they had called her to make fun of me.

In the end, it got cleaned up fine and no other harm done and the apartment dried out but for the next several days they would all point at me and laugh. EMBARRASSING! But I was laughing too after a while.