Incoherent Scribblings

Stranded on the Balcony

Germans sure do love their balconies. They are proudly mentioned in apartment advertisements, are counted in the total square meters of your apartment, and can easily drive the price of an apartment up quite a few Euros.

Many balconies are secretively wrapped in bamboo so that the lady of the house can sunbathe in the nude while smoking cigarettes and relaxing in her lawn chair. Other balconies are decorated with a plethora of flowers and a barbeque grill in order to make those without balconies jealous of the good times and food that is being had by those with balconies. Still others are not decorated at all and are merely used as a place to dry the laundry or store those odds and ends that just don’t fit into the apartment.

We have a balcony, and while I try and grow flowers in window boxes in the spring and we have a couple of lawn chairs so we can sit outside if we want, the view is not spectacular and so I mostly just use our balcony to occasionally dry my laundry.

Obviously, in order to get out onto our balcony, you must go through a typical German door. Now, for those of you not familiar with German doors and windows, they typically have three stages: closed, wide open, or tilted. One handle and a bunch of mechanisms around the edges of the door (or window) regulate all three stages. If the door or window is closed, the handle points downward at “6 o’clock.” If the door or widow is wide open, the handle points to the left at “9 o’clock.”

However, what is different about German windows and doors is this “tilting” phenomenon. The door (or window) handle is moved upward to “12 o’clock” and when you pull on the handle instead of opening, the bottom stays put and the top of the window (or door) literally tilts inward (I am told some windows and doors tilt outward too).

Since windows typically don’t have screens on them here and I have never seen a screen door, tilting can be a very handy way to let air in while preventing kitties (or children, I suppose) from falling or jumping out of the window.

This morning, I was up fairly early and though it was cool, it promised to be a sunny spring day and so I decided to do a very typical German domestic task; air out my bedding by placing it on the balcony.

I got everything set up on the balcony and as I pulled the door shut behind me, I tried to simultaneously get the comforter out while keeping the cat in. It was then that I heard a strange crack. I hastily put the comforter on the laundry rack, turned around, and was greeted by a door that seemed strangely out of whack. Earlier I had had the door tilted, but I moved it to its “wide open” position so that I could get out onto the balcony with my comforter. However, apparently when I closed the door behind me the mechanisms failed and it tried to go back into tilt position.

I immediately grabbed onto the frame because in its odd position, it looked very precarious. I then called out A., but just as I heard the “crack” that came from the door, I also heard the water to the shower turn on. The end result was that the balcony door was tilted but the bottom was not in place, A. was in the shower, and I was stranded on the balcony!

I kept saying his name louder and louder, finally adding “help” and “fire” to my pleas, but he didn’t hear me. As soon as I heard the water shut off about 20 minutes later, I called out, “Help! I broke the door and I’m stranded on the balcony!”

He heard me, but didn’t exactly believe me, and so he took his own sweet time sauntering into the living room. When he saw that I was desperately holding onto the door trying to prevent it from falling (I wasn’t sure if it would or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances) he exclaimed, “What did you do now?!” (Like it was my fault…)

A. was able to get the door moved enough so that I could come in from the balcony and while I supported the door, A. called the landlord. Apparently, A. got the landlord’s wife on the phone and after he explained that we had an urgent problem, she tried to tell A. that her husband wasn’t our landlord! After some discussion, A. finally established that her husband was indeed our landlord and got his handy number.

The landlord sent one of his acquaintances over to check out our balcony door, he confirmed it was kaput, temporarily stabilized it, removed the handle, and will be back sometime next week to fix it! Until then we can’t open (or tilt) the door or go out on the balcony.

Oh well, as A. keeps reminding me, I should be glad that he was still home when I got stranded out on the balcony or I might still be there now!