23rd December……… Last minute shopping. Shoulder to shoulder in the trenches. Squabbling over the last tub of Goose Fat. I won… never underestimate an Aussie girls’ ability to feed her family. She will go to wall.
The ENOURMOUS turkey arrived. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home. So the efficient DHL man left it with my neighbour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the friendly neighbour, but rather the one that has been peering at me through her net curtains since the day I moved in.
I rang the bell.
“Guten Morgan, Frau Whipplebottssternhagen. I believe you have a parcel for me?” Picture me with my most winning smile, desperately hoping that she doesn’t stuff a chloroform rag in my mouth and drag me into the cellar.
“Ya… but the box says ‘Fresh Produce’… does that mean that it is alive?” She is peering at me with little beady, blue eyes, and I begin to wonder if she is sizing me up as to whether I will fit through her mince grinder.
“Well actually, it is our turkey for Christmas dinner.” And here, I made a BIG, BIG (I typed that in upper case, just to ensure that you get it… BIG! mistake.
“I hope that you took it out of the box and let it have a walk around your garden, I am sure he is feeling a little cramped cramped in there…”
The blood rushed out of her face. Her mouth made a perfect ‘O’. Her eyes started darting backwards and forwards between me and the box.
“But I didn’t know!!” she said, very serious. “You should have told me… it is not nice to stuff a large bird into a box for so long.”
Never in my wildest dreams did I think she would believe me.
“Ha, ha,(that is the laugh that comes out of me when I know that I have screwed up and need time to formulate an excuse that will sound vaguely plausible) don’t worry, I was just kidding you…” as I am edging toward my bird, in the vain hope that she is going to let me escape with him or her.
“Oh, I see.” But she didn’t, she didn’t see one little bit. With pursed lips, she handed me the offending box, sniffed once, and closed the door, barely missing the tip of my nose.
The curtains twitched with more than their usual vigour until I managed to find refuge back inside my house.
Moral to this story: Making jokes about mailing live animals in a box is not going to get you elected president of the Straße.
3 comments:
But it makes for a really great blog post.....
Why did I know what was coming? I work with that lady's sister ... not a lot of understanding of aussie humour.
Well, it's christmas day here, very hot, but we have an inner glow, knowing that we have sent all that rain to almost all the southern states for christmas ... those dry rivers will get some reall territory rain to flush them out!
So youre saying Germans arent chatty or have a sense of humor ;)
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