It's been a long week. Plus, I still need to kind of recover from the London trip so I've been trying to take it easy this week. But today was a gorgeous day and so after the gym, I met SBK for a nice Weissenbier by the Rhein. The sun was shining, it was warm enuf for short sleeves and people were out en masse. Good day.
Stopped in Sachensenhausen for some Lebanese food, basically a cross between Mexican and Turkish food. Not a bad mix tho. After that, some desert and its a good evening.
On the way back home, now that's a different story. I passed by this station wagon. This little lady was standing next to it with the trunk open, 2 kids in the backseat and about 4 cases of soda on the ground. I didn't really pay any attention to it since a site like that seems to pretty typical of my neighborhood. The difference was that this time, the lady grabbed me and asked me in German if I could help her carry some of the soda cartons into her apartment.
Now if someone were to stop me in the middle of the night and ask me to help them carry stuff into their apartment, I would have to think that they were crazy and would haul ass out of there.
(BTW, all the talking was in German so these are all going to be approximate translations as my German is still pretty poor and I was pretty tired from the workout and walking around Frankfurt.)
Unfortunately, before I could run off, her husband or brother came in and said to pick up a carton. By that time, the lady has said that her apartment isn't far about 7-8 times so finally I just pick up a carton and start walking towards the apartment. And then she says, "Wait, can you take another?" Now each carton had 12 bottles in it so it wasn't very light. Then the husband starts going, "Pick up another one. C'mon." And I think he was kind of raising his voice at me. And I'm thinking, "I'm doing you a favor, man. Geez. What an attitude." But whatever, if the apartment isn't that far away, it won't be a problem. So I pick up the 2nd one.
So I'm carrying 2, the husband is carrying two. He's a big guy so it doesn't seem to be a problem for him. He's carrying one in each hand like its a little handbook. So we get around the corner and I walk toward the door to the apartment building. Nope, he says, it's the next one. Great, another 50 feet. We get to the apartment building and he's gotta pull out his keys and find the right key out of a keychain with like 100 keys. C'mon!! Then it gets better.
We get inside the apartment building and we have to walk up 2 floors in order to get to the apartment. No elevator and each floor has 2 flights of stairs apiece. Just great. So I start walking up the stairs and I'm wondering if I just drop the cartons and sprint out if he'll be able to catch me. I don't think he could but by the time I finish the thought, I'm already 3/4 up the stairs. We get to the door and then he has to make room by the door for the sodas. Another 2 minutes of carrying. My little biceps are screaming. Finally, I can put them down. I ask if that's it and he says yes and shakes my hand for helping him. So I think I've down my good deed for the day and start walking out. On the way out, I run into the lady again . . .
She asks if I can carry one more thing. A TV. It's about 15 inches. I think she said that it was light and I'm like fine fine. So I pick up the TV and she says, "It's light, right?" And I say sure although I'm tired and don't really think so. Then she says, "Well, why don't you carry a little more?" OK fine. I guess I can do that. Before I know it, I'm carrying the TV and THREE VCRs!!! I'm balancing the topmost VCR on my face. The eject button is on my nose. Its not too heavy but not light either. So I can't see, its dark and I start walking towards the apartment again. The husband/brother comes out and I'm thinking, "Great, help me out and take off one of these VCRs, my nose is itchy." What does he do? He turns around, runs back to the apartment to hold the door. You'd think he could do that while carrying a VCR.
Back up the stairs. This time he wants me to carry the stuff into the apartment. Now I'm thinking, "OMG, How could I be so stupid? They're gonna kidnap me and put me into some crazy German S & M torture chamber." But he just wanted me to take the stuff into the kitchen. I ask again if that's it. He says yeah and shakes my hand. This time, I run down the stairs and jog out the door out onto the street. I run into the lady again. Crap. It doesn't look like they have more stuff.
This time, she says thanks and ask for my phone number. And says something in German to the effect of "Give me your phone number and we'll call you if WE need more help" or "Give me your number and we'll come help you if you need it." The first one makes more sense, I think. But I broke out in my broken German that I didn't have a phone and that I'm only visiting from the US. But that didn't really work on her. It explained everything to her husband/brother who I guess noticed that I was tired and that my legs were still in jogging mode and maybe noticed that I wanted to get away. So he shuffled his wife/sister away. Thanks. And then I walked really really quickly back to my apartment.
I think that should count as my good deed day for the next week at least. I still don't know why I said yes but they were so pushy that I guess I felt obligated for some strange reason. Anyway, now I'm tired from all of the jogging and carrying stuff. I'm going to sleep now. Gnite.
