Incoherent Scribblings

A Funny Thing Happened

… At the laundromat tonight. I saw this guy there that I thought I should know, but couldn’t place him.

(In the spirit of Halloween, I know that this story could fall into a horror movie cliché very quickly, so let me say that we were not the only people there: There was also a family and three or four other people that drifted in and out leaving their laundry unattended.)

While I was standing there waiting for the dryer, the mysterious man came up and introduced himself as this guy that was at a birthday party I went to on Friday. As soon as he said that, I remembered him from a margarita-induced haze: He had had on a fedora that made him look like a jazz musician. I also remembered that he was there with one of our student workers.

I thought that he was just being nice and reintroducing himself to me, but he just stood there and kept talking to me. After I added another fifty cents to each dryer for another 15 minutes (what a rip-off, by the way!) he asked me if I wanted to go across the street to this restaurant to grab a drink while I was waiting.

I agreed and we crossed the street. I ordered my Coke, but before I could pull out my wallet he bought it for me. We sat down and chatted for a while and a few minutes later when my laundry was done he helped me put it in my car.

It was a completely innocent situation I am sure, but I can’t help but feel it was a little weird: After all, he came up to me even though he barely knows me. Now in all honesty, I wouldn’t find this terribly unusual, but I know (and he knows I know) that he has a girlfriend.

In most situations I would think he was hitting on me, but this time I couldn’t decide if I was imagining things and he was just being nice. It is possible I suppose, but in my experience, guys don’t do things like that unless they are interested.

Domestic Disasters – The Comforter

It all started on Thursday evening about 9:30 p.m. I went into the bedroom and proceeded to hang up a small pile of clothes that was on the bed. It consisted of my bathrobe, A.’s raincoat, and the jeans that I had been wearing earlier in the day. I folded the jeans and put them in the closet.

I then picked up the raincoat and as I put it on the hanger I noticed that the sleeve was wet. This was interesting because it hadn’t rained at all that day. Suspicious, I brought the sleeve a little closer to my nose and discovered the distinctive scent of cat urine. Reluctantly I turned around and, as I feared, I was greeted by a large wet spot on the comforter.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that not only was my robe also damp, the jeans that I had just put into the closet (on top of all my other clean jeans) had not escaped a dousing either. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. and I had no choice but to do a load of laundry. I grumbled a lot because starting a load of laundry at 10:00 p.m. that will take two and half hours to wash is a pain when you want to go to bed around 11:00, but I could deal with that…

However, it gets better, because after all, this Germany and things are never as easy as they seem!

Read the rest…