When Bourgeois Women Cry Their Tears Sting

Warning: very long post and some over sixteen language. I apologize here for the poor grammar and chaotic content. Let this and other posts on this site stand as an example that paying attention in school is really kind of important.

Yet another rant on living in Germany. Here and here for more. This too will not be published in Der Spiegel.

Please note: I am not a misogynist, although the story here and the post below might cause you to think otherwise. If anything, sadly enough, I am by genetic coding a misanthrope. Beyond that I believe that human beings have been on the wrong path since, oh, let me see, Francis Bacon first coined the phrase “knowledge is power.” There is simply nothing since the paradigm shifting time of Bacon, whether one talks of religion, politics, science or whatever else man can come up with, that in any way addresses the misery of life on this planet. There is only the status quo driven by a one-sided Newtonian train of thought. This so disgusts me that I often get carried away and unfairly discharge my frustration(s) on fellow members of the herd. Fortunately my discharge consists of nothing violent, as I mean no harm. It’s as though everything is so bent and out of shape, so used and abused, that while trapped in a barrel of rotting apples, even I forget why everything that is sour could actually be sweet. Oh, if only there was a man out there who could set me straight. If only most men hadn’t become like women.

When Bourgeois Women Cry Their Tears Sting

Or

Why Do All Divorced Middle Aged German Women Have Sour Puss Faces?

Had an interesting weekend recently. Met up with acquaintances at a German pub in Düsseldorf. It was a casual night of drinking. Lasted till the wee hours. Pounded away “Altbier” as though I hadn’t had any in years – which is about right. As usual, when I drink too much beer I start to take things seriously. Tasting “Altbier” again was a joy and so I drank quite a few. A cordial round table of drinks can become a debate-hall-of-hell and I am more than willing to bare the brunt of flying rotten tomatoes, horse urine or, if any German male is able, a good old fashioned fist fight. But this night seemed, perhaps because of the extended lapse of not drinking in Düsseldorf, to be calm and lacked the slightest incident that could have the wings of a butterfly start a hurricane. I actually kept my tongue through most of the night and didn’t once let out the personal and standardized contempt I have for contemporary German society or the guided-by-the-blind western world in general. Ultimately, I yelled no un-called-for and insulting platitudes to Germans – which I tend to do as long as I don’t exceed a limit of, I don’t know, let’s say, ten or so beers. Seriously. It started out as a good night with the krauts.

Then this woman reared her sour puss face

The rambling and discharge of hate and frustration at being a loser among a world of losers is often a bit much and my relief valve is usually some chump that thinks s/he can hang with me on any intellectual level. Hence, this is why I have no friends and perhaps a reason why I have no job. It’s certainly the reason why I am poor but living among so many of the modern incarnation of bourgeoisie class Germans. Since I’m not a “class” guy, what the hell do I care about that? Well, the night went on and the beer flowed. Before it was over I managed to make a woman of today’s German bourgeois class cry. No great feet, I’ll tell ya. And I did so because I was very angered by her complaining. She was a woman of about forty. She had a son who was twelve. It was obvious that she lived comfortably but didn’t get out much. Although I feel bad for upsetting her, it was a very necessary moment and quite worth the effort. In fact, I regret more having pissed off my German girlfriend because of my insolence.

German tears consist of no fluid only wound stinging salt

Don’t get me wrong here. It’s not all the Germans that cause me to have such contempt for everything human. I mean, the post here and here and here don’t really represent how I feel about ALL Germans. It’s just… How do I put this? There is a large contingency of Germans that cause me to reach the pinnacle heights of emotional anger set off by the reality of being a loser when I shouldn’t be. This is confounded by the fact that it is/was the Germans that gave up on me before I gave up on them. Although I should have left this country years ago, I stay because I fathered a child that I love with all my heart who, due to my failure, I cannot afford to take elsewhere. Beyond that, because I believe in doing the right thing and painstakingly trying to live according to the (German) rules – where most Ausländer do not – I am now stuck in this golden cage of fancy government subsidized company cars (Firmenwagen), Fernweh government subsidized vacations, and failed Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen that all do nothing but feed the hang-over that has become the Wirtschaftswunder.

The blame game played by the master(s)

Generally speaking/writing, the simple fact is the west is cannibalizing itself. You would think the Germans, as smart as they are, as over-educated as they are, could see that. You would think with their complex education system, which produces PhDs and Master Degreed people as though they are growing on trees, that at least one person in all of Germany who has a public voice or political position could tell the truth about what’s really happening. If America is number one at buying over-sized automobiles and not considering the ramifications thereof then Germany is unchallenged at position number two. The only difference to America is that the German SUVs filling up the roads are fancier and better engineered. I mean, come on, the Germans vote people into public office that do nothing but raise taxes and stop people from drinking cola from a can (for the green-party miracle see the life work of Jurgen Trittin) and support subsidizing the German auto industry with tax write-offs for corporate leased cars which is still one of the perks for landing a good job in Germany – if you have a PhD.

What has taken me a long time to understand is that the German middle-class or new & improved bourgeoisie have it better than most and the only reason for that is the effort put into to this country after WW2 – by the US. I’m not saying that Germans don’t work hard – they do. But the Germans “working” today, compared to other western countries, are where they are because of their past. Add to that the fact that the Germans have no global power and are pacified, they can easily socialize their country’s wealth. And so, Germany’s vast comfort is really nothing but a really cool and sublime inheritance from an uncle they never met. Yeah. Like a good little puppet, do everything you’re told, buy this and that, make this and that, lick here and then here and you will be rewarded with the comfort of nothingness. That’s right – hard pill to swallow, eh. Yet, there is nothing new or innovative that has come out of Germany in over fifty years. Except, perhaps, establishing the most corrupt health-care system this side of Venus. Oh… I suppose the Germans can make claim to paying a lot of money in restitution to, gee, let me see… What country does Germany give billions and that country in turn uses that money to kill poor Arabs?

The Germans have a lot of money to give away, that’s for sure. Yet, the great-great grandchildren of Sturm & Drang, initiators of industrial and organizational design, philosophers and engineers, are now a people who do nothing but submit themselves to wanton consumerism. German consumerism isn’t as vulgar and disgusting as American consumerism but, as previously mentioned, Germany has no competition for position number two. The one thing that could make Germany’s rampant consumerism uglier than America’s is the fact that Germany pretends to hide behind a see-through mantel of righteousness they like to call Social Market Economics. Please keep in mind that one of the most common English words the Germans use now is Bullshit. Trust me, the Germans are just another annexed country of the United Mistakes of America and a poor example of a phoenix rising.

Wow. Consumerist are really nice people once you get to know them. Ever been to Oktoberfest?

And so… After drinking too much Altbier and making a bourgeois German woman cry, I got to thinking that maybe it’s time for me to join the bandwagon. You know, I’m not inherently evil. I don’t actually hate people – I just feel better when I’m alone. In order to fit in I could go to the German unemployment office and make them make my ex-German-wife pay for having left me to the side of the road. Or perhaps just give myself to the unemployment office and hope that they’ll get me a job at Burger King instead of McDonald’s. (Remember, there are no other jobs in this country for Ausländer – unless you have an MBA or a PhD.) But then, almost at the same time that the word McDonald’s crossed my thoughts did I realize that life is too short, too meaningless and too stupid to give in. I will continue the fight. The fight of being worstwriter, loser, failed writer that no German theater will put on stage or no German publisher will consider for publication or… I will continue to make stupid people cry, whether they are bourgeois or not. At least I don’t live for buying gas guzzling cars or iPods!

Germany is probably the most bourgeois place on the planet. Now for those of you who haven’t spent much time with the word bourgeois let me try to provide a bit of background. I’m not saying that everybody in Germany is wealthy, which is often part of misunderstanding the word. The meaning of words, like anything else, change. The question is, how do they change? Germany is a brutally and habitually classed society. This is very strange when one considers that it was exactly class and class structures that lead to Germany’s only claim of historical significance in the twentieth century. We know how negative that worked out. The difference to the class structure of yesteryear is that today it’s no longer about… Gee… Elbow room.

Enter the mindless and very subservient new & improved German bourgeoisie

The gilded German today is clueless. He or she is so preoccupied with submitting to the system that nothing else can penetrate their psyche. In the past this was called things like Kästchendenker (thinking in a box) or Kadavergehorsam. When a drunk middle aged woman enters a bar conversation and thinks she has to defend against my offensive remarks, she better be packing something more than the comfort of her countries welfare system. Most Germans are so wrapped-up in archaic social ideals (that they invented, btw) that they cannot tell the difference between political reality and social illusion. In trying to figure out how the Germans, especially those under forty-five, came to be what they are today I concluded that the problem lies in their school system. A school system that continuously receives poor grades from OECD Pisa. When I tried to get an answer from a German as to the “Zweck” (intention, purpose, goal) of maintaining a social-class-structured public school system all they could say is: because that’s the way it is, or, because I went through it and now have a comfortable life, or, the German school system was set up at a time when…

There are so many German single-mothers that sometimes I think they all use sperm banks

Germans still strive to educate people in a class-based public school system. This system is fine if the Kaiser or Adolf is still running things, or, perhaps, if there is an abundance of blue collar work available. But, fortunately for the world, the first two mentioned in the previous sentence are no longer applicable. Unfortunately there is practically no blue collar work left in Germany. I take this problem personally because my son has to face it and I have no control or power to change that. Here’s a few obnoxious conclusions about the German public school system:

-The German school system is bursting at the seams and no one really seems to care.
-German schools are ridiculously underfunded and yet company cars are paid for with tax money
-There are too few teachers per student (as in every western country?)
-The Germans haven’t put any effort into modernizing their school system – ever!
-The German school system only produces automatons or smart asses – come and live here amongst the Germans for a few years and see for yourself.
-Like most other western countries, German politicians are a day late and Euro short when it comes to running or managing anything. (I’ll bet I’m not too off when I say that almost all political decisions that have to do with spending federal money in Germany go toward subsidizing the unemployed, the elderly, universities; certainly no new money goes to public schooling.)
-The archaic mental dependency that most Germans have on history alleviates any need to address social problems that stem from past mistakes. (They can’t fix anything that’s broken.)
-The German public school system is draconian.
-Allied forces had determined that part of de-Nazification was to include the dismantling of the class-based school system. But for whatever reason – which certainly excluded the hording of Germany’s intellectual assets (sarcasm) – the allies didn’t quite make it to the German school system.

“No child left behind”, Jawohl

There is a magical period that determines a child’s future in Germany. This period starts at the wee level of fourth grade. My son entered the fourth grade in Germany last fall. By the end of the fourth grade it will be determined in which “class” my son may continue with his journey towards becoming part of the automaton future that awaits every young German today. That’s right. The fourth grade! Did you ‘all read that? Here it is again. The fourth fucking grade is when a German child’s future is put on a certain track. It is the moment of no return in the classed-based society known as The Federal Republic of Germany (as of 2007). And this is all done just as it was done in aristocratic Kaiser Germany and, heaven forbid I mention his name again, during the time when that freak Adolf captured the collective souls of a bunch over educated numb-nuts.

According to this “class” system a child is evaluated and judged during the first four years of grammar school. Based on their grades and performance up to the fourth grade a child is given a “recommendation” regarding which school or “track” to take that continues with the fifth grade. It is here that schools differentiate into “classes”. I’m not talking grade levels here or curriculum. You can read more about the vastness of German schooling here. In short there are basically four tracks or choices a child is given at the end of the fourth grade. (Source: Wiki link above.)

-Hauptschule – the least academic, much like a modernized elementary school, until grade 9

-Realschule - middle school until grade 10

-Gymnasium - “high school”; goes to grade 12 or 13; if you acquire Abitur you may immediately begin the process of trying to get a place in university; Abitur is more academically advanced than US HS diploma

-Gesamtschule - comprehensive school, includes all three options above

Now, in Germany it is always said that no matter what choice is made for your child (that’s right: the choice is made for your child) they will always have an “equal opportunity” of achieving their dream of owning a gas guzzling car and/or affording vacation packages to coincide with all the vacation given by German employment laws. And that’s a great governmental and/or social commitment that we can all trust because I’m sure most people reading this are aware of the prerequisite of having any type of living standard in today’s western world of Wunder and big gas guzzling cars. Seriously. How will you start along the path of career moron-ship without a university education? That is the point of public education, right? Or… did I miss something and there really is a lot of blue-collar work out there? I mean, obviously, not everyone can be a Bill Gates, right? BTW, didn’t he drop out of school? Of course, those who finish “Hauptschule” and “Realschule” usually have to acquire a diploma from a “Gymnasium” in order to get into a university, which means they have to extend their public education and we know that every child wants that. Should I even mention what comes out of the doors of these schools? I have personally seen the class structure of the kids that enter and exit these schools. It is so obvious once you stand at the front doors of this Hauptschule or that Realschule who belongs to this or that German social class. Does anybody – Germans excluded – understand the implications of this system?

Have I mentioned Draco yet?

It’s astonishing to me what children of the fourth grade have to face in Germany. They have to face the reality caused by failed and useless politicians. They have to face the reality of brutal government mismanagement. Children have to face, in the fourth grade, the reality of broken homes, massive unemployment, divorce, streets full of the disenfranchised. Need I go on? The fourth grade is where children have to meet their maker at an abstract fork in the road of life. This country is busted and the only thing that saves it from going down the tubes is that it can get away with taxing the shit out of anyone who lives here. And the lemming Germans, bourgeois or not, play along because they just hosted the soccer world cup and were collectively on every TV station on the planet for a few weeks and were able to see how beautiful they all are. Because of their psyche or lack thereof, they follow and follow and follow and never have an original thought. So it’s no wonder that a system run by class-schooled automatons cannot be changed. Hell, you can’t even talk about it. Everyone here thinks it’s as a great as blue jeans, frosted donuts, the wheel.

Did I mention that the west is cannibalizing itself because only the privileged or academic book-nerds can get ahead?

If we do this to our children is it any wonder why the world is full of so much hate and so many high tech shinny gadgets that only preoccupy our time? Is it any wonder that the world is full of self centered a-holes who can’t see beyond the closed doors of the countries they live in? While America produces the so-called corporate entrepreneurial jerk-wads that can make outrageous amounts of money, Germany produces the best over-educated morons that can never have an original thought but can, with the skill of a bridge building engineer, over-organize the shit out of everything – which provides the country with a comfortable system that enables consumption only and no creativity.

I am not aware of any “successful” corporate people in Germany that do not have a Abitur. The new CEO of Deutsche Telekom looks like he was born with a PhD. Talk about equal opportunity.

Back to the bourgeois woman who is a nasty beast and she feeds on Twinkies(tm); and be careful: what follows is not very straight forward, or something like that

Like I was saying. I got into a heated debate with a German woman about the German school system and I said some things that probably were inappropriate. You know, simple insulting things like: fuck-off you ignorant lemming. Or. Take you’re social market economy and shove it up your… Or. So you think having a womb, a child and no husband makes you more deserving of pity? Say, aren’t you, according to German law, comfortably divorced?

What do I mean by insulting a middle or upper middle class German women by calling her bourgeois? The only thing that western society has achieved in the last forty or so years is that the middle class and the ranks within can buy stuff. This class of people that by birth have so much but can do nothing else but consume is shocking to me. I’m not just talking material consumerism here. The people that make up the hierarchy of the new bourgeois or middle-classes are part of the bureaucratic power that comes from the prerequisite of learned compulsive behavior that enables among other things: employment, education and, to a limited and very controlled sense, wealth. And what do these people do with all that they have? There was a time, not long ago, when life had meaning. You know, stuff like family, putting a man on the moon, creating new jobs, playing catch with your son, etc., etc. Oh, and as a failed playwright, let me not forget to mention that there was time when culture meant something, too.

The problem today is that life has been reduced to survival – even though there is more wealth in the world than ever before. Part of why that has happened, in my humble opinion, is the mis-use of language. “Wealth”, for example, is not a universal construct with a definition written in stone; the same for the word “bourgeoisie”. And will anyone give me credit for coining the word “middle-classes” here? Today these terms are somewhat interchangeable which is in contrast to their historical usage. It’s as though at one point in verbal history these words copulated and by doing so were able to interject themselves into the German gene pool. Wealth no longer has anything to do with what one can own or how much one earns. Instead it has to do with how people position themselves in social classes. Archaic money means nothing anymore when you have a society that lives, basically, off of welfare. I won’t even get into trying to explain what “welfare” means these days. The real joke is that people, you know, democratic participants, are voluntarily allowing themselves to be dumb-downed. People, especially the bourgeoisie, continue on with the ultimate life goal of attaining “wealth” and not realizing that everything they buy is destructive.

There was a time when “wealth” equated with kingship and aristocracy and all that caused hardship and pain to humanity. What does it mean now?

Today the word wealth is nothing more than a telepathic buzz-word used as a greeting among the controlled minds of high ranking compulsive behaviorists who dream of wiping their… with paper made of sugar and gold. Wealth is in fact a word synonymous with failure. The best example of this can be found in the expanding middle classes or modern bourgeoisie of places like… Gee… Germany? When one looks at the men in these classes it’s easy to find plenty of examples of mis-deeds, contempt, and way too much non-creativity. There is no need for an empirical analysis to either grasp or prove that men have pretty much screwed things to the hilt. But when one looks at the women… Oh. I’d better be careful here, eh!

Naw. Fuck it.

It is the divorced bourgeois females that yell “let them eat cake” that are really screwing things up. Beyond that, there’s the issue of, I don’t know, a woman’s right to vote. With most men today leading the pack of compulsives, building and re-building all the corporate boy clubs, the female right to vote is still a big deal. The reality is, for a guy to meet the German requirements of having a happy home he has to earn a PhD or MBA and afford the bourgeois living standard chicks have styled and decorated and while doing all this everyone forgets if there’s actually any pie left.

Don’t think about the nonsense; just go with it; it might be fun, it might give you material to insult others; it might help you realize that successful corporate men are actually women

I say this and mention women because you would think that, of the human species, women could best see the wrongs wrought by men and in turn straighten them out. Yet all women do is hone their skills of managing a rice-paper-marriage and cheer-lead as life goes to hell in a hand-basket. I mean, come on, what should we expect from men? I have learned that most German women, oddly enough, overly admire the stature of the new and very young CEO of Deutsche Telekom. The reason for that is he represents the best Germanic example of modern bourgeois, socially acclimated accomplishments, and the ability to comfortably afford a divorce. You see, statistically, fifty-percent of all German women are preparing for the arrival of their hand-basket – and NO, they’re not really aware of that fact. Now, due to the general collective ignorance of human beings, especially men, the innate desire to be loved and accepted and respected and part of some class neither here nor there (bourgeoisie?) has become something of a self perpetuating big-bang and chaos theory wrapped in clear plastic paper and labeled “Twinkie”. “Twinkie” serves as a pseudonym for both “wealth” and “bourgeoisie” and also German CEOs of really monstrous companies who have really small cocks.

Back, finally, to that drunken night, bourgeois German women, sour puss faces

The evening at the Altbier pub had gone way beyond number six. At which point, once provoked, you know, by some moronic individual defending stupidity, everything said sounded like fighting words to me. The Germans defended their stupid school system, saying nothing more than that’s the way it is. I thought, you guys complain about everything, you’re grumpy all the time, and since living in your country I’ve also learned to complain and be grumpy. Don’t you think it’s time to stop complaining and being grumpy and finally doing something? For the sake of the kids? All I heard was gulp, gulp and more gulp and a woman’s eyes boiling full of tears.

Of course I have anger issues that I have to deal with. I also have hemorrhoids. I can feel a hernia coming on, my balls hurt and at forty-four I’m really tired of shaving everyday. As stated I’m stuck in a country I don’t want to be in but I can deal with that because I know that what I’m doing is for a greater good. Unfortunately, after the pseudo-debate about the stupid German school system the bourgeois German women started talking about how hard it is to be a divorced German woman in Germany and have a twelve year old German son.

Ok, I added all the “Germans” in that last sentence. It’s like fingernails screeching down a black-board

Before long it was obvious that the bourgeois woman profited greatly from her divorce. But she wasn’t married to the Deutsche Telekom CEO. Still, the ex-husband was paying for the house that she and her son lived in. He was also paying for living expenses. Of course, not being super-rich, she did have to work. And every, I mean EVERY, German bourgeois woman has a job. Just like in America, the house-wife thing is truly part of history. The difference for American women though is that the German bourgeois have certain job guarantees, perks and lots of benefits. You know, the German government has thoroughly regulated the whole mass divorce thing – women aren’t left hanging by something as simple as motherhood combined with marital disharmony. But I don’t want to paint things Disney-like. Eventually I pushed the bourgeois woman off the subject of her “benefits” and got on the issue of how bad I felt for my son that he had to face such a choice in the fourth grade. She laughed or giggled. Then she gulped. Then… she said that she had sacrificed three years since her divorce so that she could help her son get into Gymnasium and this was the first time she had been out to a pub.

You’re not serious; going ballistic; dialog

That was the last straw for me. Enough small talk from stupid, spoiled people about big things. Although I no longer used vulgar words (except for “fuck” here or there) I went ballistic on the woman. Here a rough transcript in translation:

“So, tootles, you sacrificed the last three years, uh? That’s kind of joke, you know. I mean, you’re not serious? You have everything. A house. A car. A son that’s healthy, right? How can you complain about anything?

“But that’s not what I mean…” she tried to say.

“You should have thought about the consequence of your living standard when you got married,” I said. “And you know what else? You especially deserve the biased German laws that require divorce to be so expensive – and I don’t mean settlement here. This country is supposed to be about equality and the government supports the exploitation of the needy by requiring – even if the parties agree one-hundred percent on a settlement – that private practice lawyers moderate a divorce. The government shouldn’t sanction penalizing men for marrying spoiled rotten women and on top of that sanctioning an environment where piranhas can exploit the situation.”

“But it’s unfair that I haven’t been able to get out for three years.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything? Grow up, barbie. Jesus H. Christ, how old were you when you got married?

“What?” Gulp, gulp, gulp. “How old was I. I was… thirty.”

“Your first marriage?”

“Yeah.”

“You got married at thirty and then divorced by, I don’t know, let’s say, about forty?” (She was definitely older.)

A guy a few tables down interjected that all German women end aging at twenty-nine. There was some laughter between the gulps. Then I changed the subject to something real.

“You know what, honey. I’ve been sacrificing for more then ten years. I also know that marrying for the first time so late in life is a big mistake. On top of that you have no idea what it’s like living in this country as a Ausländer. It’s especially hard if you don’t want to become ‘German’ and you think soccer is a sport for women.”

Most of the men interrupted their gulps when I said the word “soccer”.

The thing is, at least I learned this pretty early in life, one should be very careful when making assumption. And this women and the crowd that was beginning to place itself behind her, gulp here nor there, was assuming a great deal. So I raised the stakes and my voice.

“You know, my little tangerine, let me tell you something about sacrifice. I have basically been rejected by your country even though, in contrast to most other Ausländer, I put great effort into fitting in. I learned the language, provided all the proper documents, paid your taxes, and played the catch-22 game of fulfilling the whimsical desires of bureaucratic morons when it came to getting my visa every two fucking years. Did you know, even though my mother was born in this country, I was treated like a illegal alien when it came to getting permission to stay here. My Opa (grandfather) – who lived in North Germany – may God rest his soul – was shocked when I explained to him what I had to go through to get a visa to stay in Germany. But I went through it. The catch-22 game, by-the-way, was that in order to get a visa I had to have job. In order to get a job I had to have a visa.”

One of the men at an adjoining table said, “Oh yeah, well it’s twice as hard to get a visa to live in Amerika.”

“Yeah it is, you fuckin’ moron, because everyone on the planet wants to go there! Who in their right mind other than some whacked-out Congo tribal chief wants to actually live in fucking Germany? Do you think I actually decided one day to just move here? Fuck you.”

My blood started to boil. I was in the lions den, a belly full of beer, had just ate a bun with sausage and onions – if only the place had beans I would gulp them and wash it all down with schnapps.

“I hate having to live in Germany. I hate this place of comfort and social welfare. But I do it because there is something bigger here than just me. And he’s only nine years old and he’s in the fourth grade. You know, I haven’t been able to get a decent job in over seven years. The German woman I married dumped me at a time when I couldn’t fulfill her living standard. When she asked me to leave I did so and I left her with everything. Granted, what I had earned and provided to my wife and son during more than ten years wasn’t much, but it was all I had. I stay in Germany now because there is a greater good here. I could have gone to the states but there I would also have to live so poor that I could never afford to see my son. So I stay in your golden cage so that I can see my son as often as possible. Tootles, you keep telling yourself that you make sacrifices. Ok. Now go buy something less expensive tomorrow.”

There was a short moment of silence, very short. Then the gulps of beer resumed and the bourgeois woman took a short breadth. For whatever reason she felt it necessary to go on.

“Well, we all make sacrifices. I’ve given up evenings helping my son do his homework so that he could get accepted to Gymnasium.”

I almost felt like giving her a prize.

“Oh yeah. Well I just learned that my son will be recommended for your Realschule and I don’t think that’s right because he wants to attend the Gymnasium because that’s where all the other kids from his first, second, third and fourth grades classes are going.

“Well, he can always try to get into the gymnasium later. When he improves his academic performance,” she said.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Big fucking deal. Why is there this pressure on fourth graders? And why doesn’t Germany realize that most families are broken and don’t have any time to spend with kids and… But good for you. Now that you’ve sacrificed so much I’m sure you’re boy will grow up lacking imagination but will have a big shinny PhD and if your government actually starts doing something he might also be able to afford going skiing with the bourgeois idiots in Munich where by two-thousand and twenty they’ll have developed a new-fangled way of making snow that you can sky on in winter temperatures well above freezing.”

There was no way out of this conversation. I had gone too far. I was losing my cool. The can of worms was completely open. I tried to gather myself and refrain from emotion.

“You know,” I said with a calm voice. “I think it highly detrimental to subject children of the fourth grade to something that most adults can’t face. It’s great that you helped your son with his homework so that he could go the elite route. But can’t you see that none of that matters anymore? Children don’t need schooling in this day and age. They need something else.”

She looked at me as though she were thinking about the large cake baking in her vast empty mind and the sling-shot she wished she had that could distribute it to Das Volk.

“No,” she said. “My son is going to go to university and he’s going to be a…”

“Don’t you think,” I said, “that it would be better if you prepared your son for the reality that he will never have it as good as you? And that he will face a life filled with sporadic love and if he’s lucky subservient comfort?”

“Abitur. My son will get his Abitur,” she said and I watched a tear drop fall into her glass beer. “And that is the way Germany is and we like it that way and if you don’t like it…”

As though a church bell rang or a bell-horn sounded, in one grand gesture the entire pub of Germans raised their beers, saluted and then gulped.

“Oh really, well fuck me in the ass for not knowing all that shit when I arrived here twenty years ago. Fuck you all.”

What’s the point of anything when people, bound by fictional land designations are so blinded by what they imagine is righteous?

The end.

PS Shame on me for being mean. Shame on others for living in the lies and enjoying it.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Technorati Tags: social commentary, germany, writer, fiction, failure, playwright, living in Germany

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