Unfurnished apartments in Germany come equipped with next to nothing. That means no closets, no kitchen sink, no cabinets, no oven, and no refrigerator. So, mostly it means empty rooms. The bathroom, however, does come with your standard European toilet, shower, and sink.
I’d never valued the presence of a toilet so much in my life until I came to live in Germany. The absence of all major appliances in my apartment for almost two months forced my unlikely bond with the shitter. Another choice was the shower. But I tend to fancy a staunch flushing mechanism over a cheesy detachable nozzle any day.
And just when I thought I was becoming accustomed to all the different rules and cultural norms of my new land, I was pleasantly surprised once again. Furniture delivery day. I had to carry—more like push, drag, pull, and cajole—a six-and-a-half foot couch up two flights of stairs alone.
A few days prior, my wife and I bought some furniture at what was presumably the cheapest store in all of Frankfurt. With only a scratch here and a nick there, we felt pretty darn good about signing ourselves up for a quick delivery on the coming Thursday. But, alas, the furniture would arrive at one in the afternoon on a day that felt like hot soup.
“This is gonna be fun,” I thought to myself while peering out my apartment window. Outside, a run-down orange box truck circled the resident parking lot. Within seconds, my sneakers were halfway on my feet and being worn like slippers. I clumsily shuffled out the door and hobbled down the stairs. Two Hispanic German guys soon greeted me outside, where our incoherent communicative exchange immediately began.
I mostly pointed in every direction and the Hispanic Germans mostly complied. They brought the couch, a solid wooden bookshelf, and three boxes of an unassembled entertainment center into the front walkway.
“Nummer zwei, bitte” (number two, please), I said to one of the guys, then pushed the building door open and motioned upstairs in the most confident of manners. Neither of them came inside, though. As I stood there, carefully holding the door wide open as if it were a safe deposit box full of rare coins, I wondered, “What’s going on here?”
Now fixated on their every move, I zeroed in on the bigger guy, who was seconds away from failing my pre-judgment-based-solely-on-looks screening. But before I could stereotype any further, my suspicion suddenly grew exponentially, when I discovered that they were strategically piling all of the stuff up against the building.
“Alright,” I whispered to myself, with the notion that “I got this one, no problem.” Despite hearing the door close behind me, I held my hand out to my side as if introducing a dear friend. “Entschuldigung!” (Excuse me!) I said rather loudly, and then, clearing my throat, pointed up at the building.
“Twenty euro,” one of the guys said. (Every time you try to speak German to a German, they’ll try to speak to you in English if they know you can hardly speak the language. And these guys were supposed to be Mexicans.)
“Floor 1 … ten euro, floor two … twenty euro, floor three … thirty euro.”
“No way,” I murmured. “Only got five euros on me,” I thought. Besides, the stuff isn’t supposed to be just left outside. ‘Hello? I’m home, right here!’
I started to curse loudly under my breath, just like I’d done many times back home in America. My eyes darted back and forth at the ground, my face became flushed, and sweat began forming on my brow and at my temples. I could barely look at these two guys now. A good Charlie Horse to the arm would do the trick if I were a kid. But no. Instead, I stood there, frozen, and wearing only a polite frown.
They left everything outside, thanked me, and went on their way. And like a lonely child, I watched their truck leave the area, callously deserting Am Nonnenhof (street name) and creating a faint, yet almost cinematic-like dirt cloud in the process.
In moments of distress, I tend to pace a lot. This time was no different. Despite knowing full well that I would eventually have to deal with what laid before me, I paced the area for what seemed like an eternity. It was as if time had been suspended before I finally stopped and did an about-face, so I could sneer at the yellow concrete façade of the apartment building, with the dark-colored oak furniture and beige fabric sofa neatly lined up against it. And I remained there, an angry man—in the company of my own misery for a solid three to five minutes.
I dialed my wife at work.
“Hey, babe,” she answered.
“Get home.” I wasted no time saying things I shouldn’t have said. “What kind of country is this?” She gave me the loud-tone, nervous whisper:
“I can’t leave work."
“What if it rains? I can’t leave everything outside for the next six hours. And how are you going to help me carry a couch up the stairs anyway?”
I told her I had to go, then decided that I needed to do something about it. Immediately!
For almost an hour and a half, I methodically planned and carried out one of the most irksome furniture-moving experiences of my adult life. It was even more treacherous than the demolition job I assisted a friend on in Cambridge one summer, which involved some quirky guy collecting junk on the premises all afternoon (never did I know his association), and my friend’s reckless father, who spent half the day inside a dumpster located directly below a two-story window, from where we launched desks, chairs, and couches that came within a foot of his head.
I sweated, cursed, squirmed, and squabbled while carrying a heavy-ass couch up two flights of stairs. Propped it up, pushed it forward—with a comforter underneath—pulled it back, slid it on the floor, and did just about anything else I could do. Fortunately, nobody came up the apartment building staircase to witness my struggle with the formidable beast.
On one occasion, I swore the couch was going to bully me back down the stairs and land on my chest. As I pushed it up the stairs with all my strength on that humid day of annoyance, I could feel the blood rising again. And that’s when I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. All I could think about was my wife coming home to find a large, heavy couch resting on my frail body, as I lay there lifeless from a ridiculous one-man furniture moving experience.
About an hour or so before she came home that evening, it started to rain. Which got me thinking: sometimes, you know, we may just need those unfunny challenges. So, yeah, I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad it worked out okay.
“But what is the moral of the story?” I would go on to ask myself, as I often wondered why life throws curve balls at you when you’re not even looking. And whether or not it’s a lesson that makes any sense, I try to find the meaning in it anyway. So, for this story, I thought of a man. I thought of survival. And I thought of victory. Which leads me to the following message that I can proudly approve: The next time you're feeling down and out, try transporting a couch up a flight of stairs by yourself. It’ll do wonders for your ego.
I’d never valued the presence of a toilet so much in my life until I came to live in Germany. The absence of all major appliances in my apartment for almost two months forced my unlikely bond with the shitter. Another choice was the shower. But I tend to fancy a staunch flushing mechanism over a cheesy detachable nozzle any day.
And just when I thought I was becoming accustomed to all the different rules and cultural norms of my new land, I was pleasantly surprised once again. Furniture delivery day. I had to carry—more like push, drag, pull, and cajole—a six-and-a-half foot couch up two flights of stairs alone.
A few days prior, my wife and I bought some furniture at what was presumably the cheapest store in all of Frankfurt. With only a scratch here and a nick there, we felt pretty darn good about signing ourselves up for a quick delivery on the coming Thursday. But, alas, the furniture would arrive at one in the afternoon on a day that felt like hot soup.
“This is gonna be fun,” I thought to myself while peering out my apartment window. Outside, a run-down orange box truck circled the resident parking lot. Within seconds, my sneakers were halfway on my feet and being worn like slippers. I clumsily shuffled out the door and hobbled down the stairs. Two Hispanic German guys soon greeted me outside, where our incoherent communicative exchange immediately began.
I mostly pointed in every direction and the Hispanic Germans mostly complied. They brought the couch, a solid wooden bookshelf, and three boxes of an unassembled entertainment center into the front walkway.
“Nummer zwei, bitte” (number two, please), I said to one of the guys, then pushed the building door open and motioned upstairs in the most confident of manners. Neither of them came inside, though. As I stood there, carefully holding the door wide open as if it were a safe deposit box full of rare coins, I wondered, “What’s going on here?”
Now fixated on their every move, I zeroed in on the bigger guy, who was seconds away from failing my pre-judgment-based-solely-on-looks screening. But before I could stereotype any further, my suspicion suddenly grew exponentially, when I discovered that they were strategically piling all of the stuff up against the building.
“Alright,” I whispered to myself, with the notion that “I got this one, no problem.” Despite hearing the door close behind me, I held my hand out to my side as if introducing a dear friend. “Entschuldigung!” (Excuse me!) I said rather loudly, and then, clearing my throat, pointed up at the building.
“Twenty euro,” one of the guys said. (Every time you try to speak German to a German, they’ll try to speak to you in English if they know you can hardly speak the language. And these guys were supposed to be Mexicans.)
“Floor 1 … ten euro, floor two … twenty euro, floor three … thirty euro.”
“No way,” I murmured. “Only got five euros on me,” I thought. Besides, the stuff isn’t supposed to be just left outside. ‘Hello? I’m home, right here!’
I started to curse loudly under my breath, just like I’d done many times back home in America. My eyes darted back and forth at the ground, my face became flushed, and sweat began forming on my brow and at my temples. I could barely look at these two guys now. A good Charlie Horse to the arm would do the trick if I were a kid. But no. Instead, I stood there, frozen, and wearing only a polite frown.
They left everything outside, thanked me, and went on their way. And like a lonely child, I watched their truck leave the area, callously deserting Am Nonnenhof (street name) and creating a faint, yet almost cinematic-like dirt cloud in the process.
In moments of distress, I tend to pace a lot. This time was no different. Despite knowing full well that I would eventually have to deal with what laid before me, I paced the area for what seemed like an eternity. It was as if time had been suspended before I finally stopped and did an about-face, so I could sneer at the yellow concrete façade of the apartment building, with the dark-colored oak furniture and beige fabric sofa neatly lined up against it. And I remained there, an angry man—in the company of my own misery for a solid three to five minutes.
I dialed my wife at work.
“Hey, babe,” she answered.
“Get home.” I wasted no time saying things I shouldn’t have said. “What kind of country is this?” She gave me the loud-tone, nervous whisper:
“I can’t leave work."
“What if it rains? I can’t leave everything outside for the next six hours. And how are you going to help me carry a couch up the stairs anyway?”
I told her I had to go, then decided that I needed to do something about it. Immediately!
For almost an hour and a half, I methodically planned and carried out one of the most irksome furniture-moving experiences of my adult life. It was even more treacherous than the demolition job I assisted a friend on in Cambridge one summer, which involved some quirky guy collecting junk on the premises all afternoon (never did I know his association), and my friend’s reckless father, who spent half the day inside a dumpster located directly below a two-story window, from where we launched desks, chairs, and couches that came within a foot of his head.
I sweated, cursed, squirmed, and squabbled while carrying a heavy-ass couch up two flights of stairs. Propped it up, pushed it forward—with a comforter underneath—pulled it back, slid it on the floor, and did just about anything else I could do. Fortunately, nobody came up the apartment building staircase to witness my struggle with the formidable beast.
On one occasion, I swore the couch was going to bully me back down the stairs and land on my chest. As I pushed it up the stairs with all my strength on that humid day of annoyance, I could feel the blood rising again. And that’s when I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. All I could think about was my wife coming home to find a large, heavy couch resting on my frail body, as I lay there lifeless from a ridiculous one-man furniture moving experience.
About an hour or so before she came home that evening, it started to rain. Which got me thinking: sometimes, you know, we may just need those unfunny challenges. So, yeah, I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad it worked out okay.
“But what is the moral of the story?” I would go on to ask myself, as I often wondered why life throws curve balls at you when you’re not even looking. And whether or not it’s a lesson that makes any sense, I try to find the meaning in it anyway. So, for this story, I thought of a man. I thought of survival. And I thought of victory. Which leads me to the following message that I can proudly approve: The next time you're feeling down and out, try transporting a couch up a flight of stairs by yourself. It’ll do wonders for your ego.
