Observing Hermann...

Hermann tagged along with me to Bahnhof Zoo the other day. I wanted to buy a couple of American papers there. Unfortunately, we had to take the bus and I don't like taking the bus with Hermann. I don't like taking the bus with any of the natives here, come to think of it. I can't board the damned things properly. I always seem to cause a scene.

You see, Americans wait in line. The British queue up. The natives do something else, however. They form four or five or sometimes even six parallel lines all at once (not unlike the ancient Roman phalanx) and elbow their way in simultaneously. The old ladies are the worst. Even the fat ones have bony elbows here. They generally have a lower center of gravity, too and can do a number on your ribs quicker than you can say "Bitteschön." Hermann is skinny and rather fast and usually tries to pull me along but eventually gives up and then slides in sideways with his left elbow up at a 45 degree angle. This gives him cover from behind, I guess. The last third of the crowd then gets verbally abusive and very loud and sometimes starts throwing things at each other. When it does come to that occasional fist fight, the bus driver almost always intervenes and firmly insists that they duke it out outside.

Then, after all that, the children and the pregnant women with the baby buggies are allowed to enter. And then it's my turn. I'm always the very last one in. Hermann can't understand why I do this all the time and says that I'm way out of line. He tries to save a seat for me but he's hopelessly outnumbered and gives up and I end up standing. It's really embarrassing for him to be associated with someone that ineffectual, I suppose.

And the other passengers view me with suspicion, too. They try not to stare but they do. People who wait in line obviously make them nervous. After all, they must be doing it for some reason, right?

The native worker supports his native social welfare system by contributing 40 percent of his wages (that's a forty with a four and a zero) to retirement, unemployment and health insurance. And after that come the taxes.

German road rage is different than American road rage. They are not allowed to have guns here, for instance. And rest assured that I have thanked my lucky stars on more than one occasion that this is the case. Because, well, other than that, it's much worse here.

It's more common, you see. It's normal here. You will never find a clearer cut case of that Dr. Jäckle and Mr. Heidel syndrome than right here behind the German steering wheel. Religious do-gooders, pacifists, the sweetest, little-old-lady kind of lady, you name it, they all go berserk if you give them a set of car keys. The aggression is palpable; they are looking for a fight.

They yell and holler and scream a lot. They honk at everything that gets in their way. They speed up when they see pedestrians crossing the street in front of them (apparently a sign of disrespect). They always have the right of way. What is worse, they are always right. But that's another story.

My theory: once they find themselves behind all of that steel and glass and airbag material they actually believe themselves to be invisible. They really believe it.  No one can recognize them anymore. They have become anonymous and are no longer responsible for their actions. They are free. And that's when all of this pent up aggression breaks through and they start frothing around the mouth (I've only actually seen that happen twice, however).

And where does all of this pent up aggression come from? I'm not really sure if I want to know that right now or not.

The natives don't like to wash their cars. They LOVE to wash their cars. They MUST wash their cars. They are also very sceptical when it comes to carwashes and generally prefer to do everything themselves. It is generally the native male who washes the car here. And this can turn the whole thing into a very long and involved process. Usually a bit pedantic by nature, the native male becomes even more so when it comes time for him to wash his automobile.  He has to do everything right. He seems to find himself in some form of competition with all of the other car washers out there. It's easy to understand why, too. I've actually seen passers-by (car washers, of course) stop and gawk at some guy washing his stupid car. They are analyzing his technique, I suppose, taking mental notes on what this guy is doing wrong. It's like some territorial standoff ritual or something. Only with soap.

The average native clearly has a pressing, psychological need to blast, bash or abuse practically everything that has to do with his or her other fellow average natives. "The natives", also frequently referred to here as "die Deutschen", are placed under stinging criticism at every available conceivable opportunity and can do absolutely nothing right. They are by far the most despised and shunned social group in . This intensive form of self-criticism is usually referred to as Selbstzerfleischung.

 Roughly translated this means to rip ones self apart.

 Whenever selbstzerfleisching, the native generally prefers to use the third person narrative. "They" are incapable of this or "he" (the native as such) is incapable of that etc. "We" is usually omitted, unless, of course, the abuse is particularly well-merited and the abuser in question also just had a bad night's sleep.

 As far as I can tell, there are only three forms of Selbstzerfleischung. They are called the past, the present and the future. 

The native female is usually unusually obsessed with keeping her home in perfect order. Perfect order is the polite way of putting it, really. They have a Putzfimmel, a need to clean. They are forever picking up (Aufräumen) and sanitizing (Putzen) and tend to go off the deep end and make the place inhabitable for normal human beings (men, for instance) and often go neurotic and never even realize it. I first assumed that this was just a generational thing, that only the older native women succumbed to it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is generational in that it is obviously being passed down from one generation to the next. In an even more disturbing development, reliable sources like Hermann and Will have informed me that up to ten to fifteen percent of the native male population also suffers from Putzfimmel, "Tendenz steigend", with the numbers rising. We can only hope that recent advances in medical treatment and behavioural engineering will eventually stem the tide of this eerie and threatening disorder.

Hermann is a lot more like his father than he would like to admit. I've never met his father but I've walked around town with Hermann occasionally in the summer and I'm always shocked to discover that he would never think of wearing sandals without having put on a pair of those ridiculous white athletic socks first. I suppose it has to do with cleanliness or Ordnung or something like that. It's not a subject one can breach easily. You know, from man to man and all that. It's sure not a subject that I'm going to breach. I suppose they keep his feet clean, though. 

The natives love to put down everything American. It's not always ill-willed, but they just can't stop (it's yet another Volkssport). They also can¦t stop blindly copying everything American. This is strange. And stranger yet is that they are not even always aware of the fact that they are doing so. 

Take Harald Schmidt, for instance. Harald Schmidt is a popular late-night comedian with a show and a style that so closely resembles the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brian-David Letterman program(s) it is uncanny. Everything is stolen, of course, and Harald Schmidt would be the first to admit this - in private. But his viewers don't know this. How could they?  

They think he's hilarious and original. He is neither, of course. And his humour is a bit too biting and personal for my taste, too. He makes the American late-night hosts look like boy scouts. Unfortunately, the natives have a tendency to laugh at people, not laugh with them.

So what's the punch line? I recently talked to some natives who had spent some time in the . The conversation went along smoothly enough until they started complaining about how all of the American late-night shows shamelessly copy Harald Schmidt's style.  

Berlin is a huge city. It's a horizontal kind of place, not vertical like Manhattan , and it seems to go on forever. There are dozens of districts and townships and it's very easy to get disoriented and lost, especially when you're new here. But having said that... You should also know that it could be a whole lot worse. You could be disoriented and lost here and then make the mistake of asking a native for directions. 

Do not do this. Do not do this ever. They mean well. And that will be your downfall. You see, the natives are fundamentally inhibited, guarded, self-conscious and shy. They are also just dying for someone to release them from this torment. What is worse, they mean well, as I said, and now that you have unchained them from their inner exile by being dumb enough to ask them for directions they will start giving you directions. And they will not stop giving you directions until they are good and ready to do so. 

It makes absolutely no difference that they haven't the slightest idea where it is you wish to go. They will give you directions there anyway. But they won't stop there. They will give you directions to two or three other places you are not at all interested in going to. Then they will give you directions to places that they like to go to. And then they will give you directions to places that neither of you has ever heard of before or possibly don't even exist. They will give you directions to Fresno, California if you ask them. 

This has happened to me nine times. It will never happen to me again.

All natives suffer from German Window Neurosis. It makes no difference how old they are or where they were born or what their social background is or how high or low their level of education is or what their political affiliation is or whether they go to church or not. They have it from birth. It's been genetically determined. There is nothing they can do about it. Not one of them is even aware of the fact that he or she has it. They don't even know what it is. It's kind of spooky, really. 

There are two manifestations or stages of GWN: GWN1 and GWN2. Sadly, they complement each other perfectly and the native's body alters between them in regular cycles of helpless dependency throughout the course of the waking day. The most common symptom of GWN1 is the utterance: "Fenster zu, es zieht!" Roughly translated, this means "Shut the window, its drafty!" THAT IT IS NOT IN THE LEAST BIT DRAFTY makes no difference to the poor souls affected with this disorder, they are convinced of the contrary and will not rest until the said window is firmly closed. 

Within minutes, however, the cycle has reached the GWN2 stage and the native's agitation returns with a vengeance. It is at this point that one often hears things like "Mach das Fenster auf, da ist eine Luft hier drin!" (Open the window, the air is awful here!) or "Es riecht hier wie im Raubtierkäfig!" (It smells like the cat house at the zoo here!). Needless to say, THERE IS NOTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH THE AIR IN THE ROOM IN QUESTION, yet the window gets quickly ripped wide open anyway, unvaryingly leading back to the next GWN1 stage, of course. 

German Window Neurosis is incurable. This terrible cycle is truly endless and will eventually lead, should the native live long enough, to death. It is noncommunicable, however. But wait a minute. Come to think of it... Hey! Who opened that damned window over there?