Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Lost in Translation

We've had many situations here in Thailand where you don't really know if your point gets across because of the language differences. There's probably more times than we know that the translation gets lost and life just goes on.

Go back 1 month...
When my mom was here we had a whole day of people working in our condo. People cleaning the air-conditioning, people spraying for bugs, and our landlord checking our leaking ceiling. Before our landlord left we set up a time for the workers to come and fix the leak in our ceiling. They needed 3 days to fix it.

What I thought I said: We are going to Hong Kong until January 2nd and we are both back to work on January 6th so we won't be here to let them in if we are both at work. Please come on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Ok, they were coming!

What he thought I said: Please come on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th because we will be gone the rest of the month.

Jump to last night...

Result: Since our landlord thought we were gone and wanted to make sure the leak was actually fixed and not leaking anymore, he used his own key to come in a check the leak himself. He came at 8:50 and if we were up, we'd had seen/heard him right away. However, we are trying to get caught up on sleep and were already in bed. (we sleep with the door closed) Here's how it went down: 1) Landlord decides to open the door to our bedroom and it immediately lets in light. 2) Greg starts yelling, "Who's there? Get out!" over and over as he gets out of bed. 3) I start screaming and put the blankets over my head. 4) Greg chases landlord to the door in his birthday suit and then turns around to grab some clothes. 5) Greg heads to the elevator and it's already closed going down and comes back inside to console me.  Greg immediately says he thinks it was our landlord (only other one with an elevator key and a key to our place) and we give him a call, sure enough it was him. Greg goes down to talk to him. We figure out the loss in translation and realize everyone is ok although Greg says he was nearly crying. A few minutes later we got a text, "So very very sorry!"

Still, it was hard to sleep last night and it's going to be a long Wednesday.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, that is terrifying! I am glad that it wasn't an intruder. Hopefully your landlord will call before he pays another visit!

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  2. AH! What a terrifying experience for all three of you. I'll bet your hearts were all racing!

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  3. The whole situation actually seems quite funny to me now. When I met with the landlord down in the lobby he was shaking uncontrollably and nearly in tears! I think I scared him just as bad as he scared us. He was so shaken he could just barely sputter out sorry, sorry, sorry... He'll certainly call before letting himself in again.

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