No, Your Mom Is

I am the picture of Christmas cheer, goddamit.

Last night, a few fellow Americans and I went down to the Christmas market at the Rotes Rathaus (incidentally, the place where JFK made his famously ill-pronounced proclamation of solidarity with the survivors of the war now living in West Berlin, "Ish bean ine Bahleener").

It must be said that they sold absolute tosh, bollocks, rubbish and perhaps a tray of biscuits with a spot of tea, oops sorry back to American English now, anyhow the stuff was crap. Usually there are at least a couple of jewelry stands from whom I'm almost tipsy enough to buy something I don't need, but even completely trashed on the white wine in the plastic cup pictured above and with cold hard cash burning a hole in my pocket, I couldn't be bothered to waste my money there.

Plied wares included: hideous "hand-painted" ornaments, usually centered around a theme of Christmas nightmare, horrid, ugly, frightening things to make you afraid to go to sleep at night: Nutcrackers and goblins (I think they were supposed to be kings or something), animals from the Netherworld, etcetera, all fashioned with a smallish sort of rope thing so as to be attachable to a Christmas tree. Silk scarves in boring patterns and dull colors. Titanium, glass, and rock jewelry. Not a chunky silver ring in sight. "Handmade" slippers, socks and moccasins with the "Made in China" stickers still on them. And lots and lots of overpriced food.

The evening was going well, we were frozen but in good spirits, when apparently I provoked the ire of one middle-aged fatherly looking gentleman by loudly speaking in English, generally obstructing foot traffic and having a huge ass, and he called out, "What a horse!" I turned around to see if someone had been talking to or about me, and there was this guy in his cheap suit, looking back as he walked in the opposite direction, clearly disgusted by my existence on the planet. I looked at him questioningly and he repeated, "Horse!" Lacking the wit or vocabulary with which to form a decent comeback, I cleverly retorted, "SIE sind ein Pferd!" No, you're a horse!

Other than that the night went swimmingly and we stuck with the animal theme a bit, calling each other rhinos, sheep, hippopotamuses and other assorted not-quite-offensive animals.

Then we went to a friend's bar and I got so drunk that I fell asleep on the train, missed my connection and rode all the way to the end of a foreign line, paid €17 for a five-minute taxi ride, babbled incoherently to the 'Stoph and passed out with a cheeseburger in my hand. The end.