Draaaaaaaama

Fun!

Tried to get online today and found that I couldn't. Tightened all my connections, then tried again, to no avail. Skimmed the German help page in the computer and got told to make sure no one else in the house was on the phone. That brought a small, irritated, non-existent giggle because I live in a shoe box and have only one phone. Out of curiosity, I picked up the phone, which had no dial tone. This is the second time in a month that our phone/internet service has conked out and I am tiiiiiired of it. To call our phone company costs like 55 cents a minute which is tres uncool, mannnn I would really love to quit this piece of shit company. Can you believe that when we signed up for the service, they told us it would take up to nine weeks before it was installed? I laughed, like, "they always give you some silly amount of time to wait before your service is hooked up so you don't clog up their phone lines twice a day wondering where you internet is. Betcha it's here in 48 hours." Nope, we had to wait the entire 9 weeks. Fucking Berlin.

OK but that's not the drama. Drama is, on Friday morning, the 'Stoph and I and his dad are taking off for the Rhine. This has been the plan since Christmas. What was unclear was where we were going to stay. At the moment we are broke and thought that camping might be nice.

A couple of weeks ago at Sunday lunch, the subject of where we were going to sleep came up. Everyone else attending this event (the entire family paying a last visit to a relative who has been dying for like 10 years) is staying in the same hotel. The 'Stoph's mom offered ages ago to put us up in a hotel, but like I said, we were thinking of camping anyway, for example, somewhere near a canoe rental, and canoeing around a bit.

But it had been raining all summer, and the hotel everyone was staying at looked nice, so I told the 'Stoph that I thought we should take up his mom on her offer to book us a hotel room.

All of this negotiation was going on in German, and then finally, the 'Stoph turns to me and asks how I'd like to camp in his cousin's yard. There are several problems with this:

• I don't know his cousin from Adam, and for that matter, neither does he. But at least he's met him. I don't like staying in the homes of people I don't know, or in their yards, or whatever. It's weird. I feel like a conspicuous elephant; you're forced to be über fakey polite. Gross.
• Camping is great and all but it is a dirty act. You're filthy and sweaty, everything smells like grass; even after you get out of the shower/river there are things stuck to you. This is fine in the middle of nowhere, but I don't really fancy the idea of walking into someone's nice home to take a dump or make a cup of tea and there they are all clean and normal and there I am looking homeless. Makes me feel like a field-slave running an errand in the plantation house, no thanks.
• Pitching a tent in someone's yard? I haven't pitched a tent in a yard since I was 10, and then, the yard was my own, and the tent was actually an old sheet hung over the laundry line and held in a triangle shape with stones, and I didn't sleep in it. My neighbors didn't think I was weird because I was a kid playing in my yard, but we are nearing thirty and it's pathetic to be itinerant in the city.
• So what is his cousin trying to say? Sure, you can chill in my yard but I'm not letting you sleep in here. What are we, dogs? Are you telling me that you don't have a couple square feet in your living room where we can lay out some sleeping bags? It's fine if you don't want guests sleeping in your place but I don't want to be cast out into the yard like a stray; what if I have to use the toilet in the middle of night? Are you going to leave the door unlocked or do we have to crawl in through the pet door?

So I turned and said to him, in English (which shows how annoyed I was, because I usually speak German in their house as a sign of respect): "I told you already what I wanted to do."

Crickets. Evidently this answer was not satisfactory. Another cousin present at the meal, Jul, said, "No answer?" Yes motherfucker that was my answer, although it wasn't all of it. I omitted the bit about how I was perfectly OK to stay in Berlin and finish up some work before my seminar and hang out with people I actually know who are actually not dying, but I left that bit out. Mom could tell I didn't want to stay in any fucking tent in some stranger's yard, so she said she would arrange something for us in the hotel. Relief.

Short-lived though it was. Papa slammed down his fist and yells that she won't be arranging anything. Forget that he hasn't worked in 12 years and has no say over what the woman does with her own money. Mom says nothing. I am appalled.

Later on, I tell the 'Stoph that it's not a big deal, he can go alone and I won't be mad. But under no circumstances am I sleeping in someone's yard. He says, don't worry, we will figure everything out. Love.

Even later, Jul drags me into an adjoining room and tells me that he and Mom will arrange for us to stay in a hotel, but not to tell Papa or the 'Stoph. OMG. How old are we? Mom, day-drunk off white wine, whispers loudly in my ear several times that she is going to take care of everything and not to tell Papa. Yeah, he can probably hear you himself.

Next day, Mom calls us up and says everything's arranged but that we have to keep it a secret. If Papa asks who paid for the hotel room, we're to say that I paid for it. Hello? I have like five cents to my name and he knows that. He wasn't born yesterday, were you?

Keep in mind that the youngest person involved in any of this is me, aged 28. Mom is fifty-fucking-seven and Papa is sixty-fucking-two. Unbelievable.

Safe to say, the ten-hour drive across Germany with the 'Stoph's father is going to be an interesting side-show. I think I will feign a complete lack of comprehending the Teutonic language.

For the sake of brevity I will abruptly end here.