Damn Handy

Each night when I get home from work, I take Stella out to a little park right next to our house so she can do her business and snarf around. Depending on whether Inge has taken her on their 3-times weekly 2-hour afternoon walk, Stella's eagerness to get outdoors can vary substantially. Yesterday she had obviously been out on the town with her new best friend and was sort of leisurely making her way to the park (leisurely is a relative term with this dog, but anyway). As I followed Stella onto the sidewalk I noticed something shiny and bent down to retrieve a lost cell phone. It was a little bit wet since it is December and it is Hamburg and it has been raining on and off for the past two weeks (hint, hint Christmas visitors - bring a rain jacket). I tucked it in my pocket and headed to the park so Stella could be accosted by a giant, unwieldy, yellow lab. Not that I was sending her to be accosted, that's just how it went last night. This dog (the lab, not Stella) is a behemoth. I would guess he's well over 100 lbs and he drags his walker where ever it is he wants to go, which happened to be on or near Stella and her pee spot.

After the lab meet and greet, we headed back to make dinner and wait for the phone to ring. I sort of wondered what I would say or even how I would know if it was the owner. Or, what if the phone owner's spouse calls and some strange lady (me) answers the phone and "pretends" not to speak GErman so as to avoid an undesireable line of questioning regarding how it is that the strange lady (me) came to be answering the spouse's private line. I wasn't too worried since anyone calling didn't know who or where they were calling. I clearly had the upper hand in the matter, sucky language skills and all.

Within the hour the phone rang. I tried my best German "Hallo." The caller said a few words and I replied cheerily "Ich spreche kein Deutsch aber ich habe dein Handy." More words on his end, some I understood, others not. I managed to convey that I found his phone, I live in Eimsbuttel, work in City Nord and a few other, possibly unecessary pieces of information. I think he told me that he too lived in Eimsbuttel, worked at the Flughafen (airport) and asked where I found the phone. As I gave him my last name and address, I realized what a perfect scam it would be to drop cheapy cell phones around town and then wait for kindly folks to pick them up. The unscrupulous criminal could then arrange a quiet place to meet and WHAMO! I imagined a threw a wrench in his plans by not speaking the language.

I think I managed to arrange for him to call again tomorrow when I could pass the phone to one of my German co-workers and to arrange a time to make the exchange. God, my German is bad.

Today he called and I passed the phone and a German colleague arranged a time to make the exchange. The phone owner's sister called tonight and said "you have my brother's handy." I agreed. I think that might have been all the English she knew and since my German was no better we spent a few more minutes working out the details. When the phone rang again a few minutes later I walked out to give the phone to him half ready to bust out some sweet Thai boxing moves, if necessary. As I handed him the phone, he handed me a little box of chocolate and thanked me, visibly relieved. I imagine when your phone goes missing, you don't ever really expect to get it back. Anyway, I scored some chocolate. I think it has nuts.

What else? About 10 days until the family arrives for the holidays. I'm not really sure why I am telling you this since most of my modest readership will be here for the holidays. Or at least I hope they are among my modest readership.

Also, we are signed up for round two of Deutsch course starting in January. This time a teacher is coming to our office once a week for two hours to impart German skills. Very nice. I feel pretty ready and David is really trying at work to learn some phrases - "Wie var dein Wochenende?" I hope it helps - I am really getting tired of saying "Ich spreche kein Deutsche."

Of course, I still love Hamburg and I love free chocolate, too!