...I suspect I may be the luckiest kid in the world

Monday, March 23, 2009

Illiterate, Penniliess and Learning the Art of Bag Snatching.

So yesterday I pretended I was in a fairytale for the day.
I got to visit Disney's inspiration for His castle, go through Austria to Germany, and fly because I was wearing Astro Boy's boots. Two truths and One Lie. It's a fun game.

But perhaps more on that in another post.
Today.
I was doing the right thing and *cough* paying my *cough* fine. Somewhat begrudgingly but at least the dirty deed is done.
The guy at the Post Office couldn't speak English. What is it with people not speaking English in this German/French/Italian speaking country?!
Midway through the *cough* fine paying process he made gestures. At the time I didn't know what he was trying to say. I raised my hands in question and apologized. Enshuldigung
He looked at me pityingly, and shook his head in a sad, sorry sort of way. In hindsight, I think I was supposed to maybe write my details down. In the split second after his pitiful look I realized that he thought I was illiterate.
But once you've made claims of illiteracy, you can't take them back. I would have just been digging myself a hole. You know, with my extensive knowledge of German and all.
And so I walked out feeling somewhat illiterate. And somewhat poorer.

Now that I'm pretty much a homeless illiterate broke bum, I walk toward my train and for once I was early. I think this was a first. Normally I'm running down the platform, bag and scarf flying out behind me, coat undone, and throwing money somewhere in this ticket machine vicinity.
Not today.
And because I was early I got to spend 10 minutes talking with this Little Old Lady, or LOL for short.. She had good English, she told me, because she read crime books, books of crime and books with criminals and the like. She asked me what time the train came no less than 6 times. Funnily enough, the time stayed the same.
LOL made me feel, mmm, somewhat nervous with all her crime talk. She seemed sweet, but it's never who you expect ja? She could've been a bag snatcher for all I knew. You never hear of little old ladies bag-snatching but they would have the element of surprise on their side.

2 comments:

  1. I can relate to your feelings of illiteracy. Even after two years of German lessons, I can’t seem to always be understood!

    ReplyDelete