Was machts du
If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?
It’d be cool to have dinner with Calvin and Hobbes. I’d bring Hobbs a couple cans of tuna and I would make Calvin some vegan spider pie. He would not know the difference.
We could map out our path to the Yukon and listen to The Tragically Hip the entire time. I would have a talk with Calvin that girls aren’t all that gross.
What is the best purchase you have ever made?
1. Razor – One of the best purchase I ever made was a razor I bought in Mainz. Naturally I needed to shave. But that purchase was special as I confidently walked in the store and spoke precise German, with confidence.
2. Kopfhörer – cheap headphones are the best. The 120.00 Apple ones are difficult to keep track of. It is one of the best 9.99 I have spent.
3. Adam Beer I was hiking in Northen Italy, and there stood a lovely cabin in the middle of nowhere. I bought a 22 ounce bottle of beer. It hit the spot perfectly. I think the currency was LIRA.
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
When I was a kid, I was taught to fear the garbageman mostly because they were black. Now I almost consider them societal treasures. I am willing to bet the sounds system on the garbage truck is awful.
There is always that one Customer, and probably many more who complain when you bend the marigolds next to the recycling bin.
An entire trash can of all cans goes unrecycled. You want to complain, but your copilot he called in sick today and the supervisor bitched and moaned.
The big problem with trash is. it gets bigger and bigger every year. Sure most people recycle, but they’re simply are more people. And then there is a guy who tries to sneak three bowling balls into the trashcan.
The ex-bowler stands and watches as you take one of the bowling balls and put it in the truck. Tuesday night is league night. It would be nice not to use a house ball. His back is so tired from lifting heavy things all day long. Bend your knees man, says the man down in HR who has bad knees.
He has an Arby’s roast beef sandwich for lunch. 
And today is one of those days where he gets to drive the truck. It’s no fun because he still has to unload the trash.
And the trash piles grow every week. and still he emptied them all and still has to wake up Monday and pick up the same old trash.
But for now he’s going bowling. He has to shower for half an hour after getting home from work. Then he heads to the bowling alley. He walks the eight blocks because he is sick of driving. He still smells like trash.
But in a good way.
Because he took everybody’s trash to the dump today.
And he has a new bowling ball he was gifted from a customer.
The fairytale works until he has to do the same thing all over again tomorrow.
Where he packs his lunch and makes a Limburger cheese sandwich.
And nobody complaints.
There are perks to being a garbage man
What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of?
Well, I was not part of it, but this happened today in Germany.
A passenger on a train passing over a railway bridge spotted a woman wearing a mermaid costume swimming in the Rhine near Mainz. Believing it to be an emergency, the witness notified the police. The Wasserschutzpolizei (water police) located the swimmer, who explained she intended only to pose in the shallows but was caught in the current. [1, 2]
The swimmer was instructed to exit the water and safely reached the shore. German is a complex language to learn, but so is mermaid so some of these details are murky as The River Rhine .Because swimming in the commercial and highly trafficked sections of the Rhine river is illegal, the incident resulted in a regulatory offense proceeding.
What is interesting to know as this is an area where many cruise ships on popular cruise lines, dock. They’re are now heading back home telling their families about how there’s actual mermaids in Germany.
Das Schwimmen ist verboten
Because swimming is strictly prohibited in the heavily trafficked shipping channel of the Rhine, she now faces an Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren (administrative offense).
As a punishment, she must write the word Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren on the blackboard.
