Tag Archives: strange encounters

complaints

We’re hoooome… and now to trot out an old chestnut gripe of mine…

Bill and I got home about an hour ago. I’ve already unpacked, and am in the process of doing a load of laundry. In a couple of hours, I’ll get dressed for our big date night at the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt. I don’t plan to wear anything fancy, as the weather is truly rotten today. It wasn’t so bad when we left France, but by the time we got into Germany, it was very wet, cold, and a bit windy. To make things stranger, we had an odd encounter at a rest stop.

I went for a pee break first, having pulled out 70 cents in change. I made the mistake of taking out two five cent pieces instead of a ten or twenty cent piece. The machine wouldn’t accept it, which gave some weird, bearded, French speaking guy enough time to try to engage me. He asked if I spoke French, I said “no”, and probably looked really bitchy. I couldn’t help it, though. I was cold and needed to pee, and wasn’t in the mood to talk to a stranger. The French speaking guy kept trying to engage the Serways (bathroom attendant) guy, who didn’t seem interested in talking to him, either. After I read a sign on the door in German advising me to wash my hands– (it said, “Where have your hands been today?)– I cleaned up and scuttled out of there, not taking a moment to see if there was anything appetizing for sale. I was, and still am, a bit hungry.

Bill went to the restroom next. While he was gone, I looked up and noticed a man standing right in front of our car, facing a field. A second later, I realized he was urinating right in front of me. Now, it’s not that this hasn’t happened before. In fact, it’s happened more times than I can count. People don’t want to pay 70 cents to pee in the rest stop, so they whiz outside. It’s usually men and boys who do it. What I don’t get, though, is why they are never discreet about it. This guy was standing right next to a building. He could have at least ducked behind it to do his business.

Also… it was so cold and rainy outside. I can’t imagine it was very pleasant for him to be publicly urinating in that weather. I’m not a man, but I thought there was a certain issue with “shrinkage” when it’s cold outside. I took a photo of him, because I’m awful that way. I don’t know him at all, and I doubt he would be recognized by anyone… but I just want people to remember that someone is always watching. And while it’s no shame to need to go pee, it is technically illegal to do so in public, even in Germany, where public nudity isn’t that big of a deal. Of course, that rule against wild pissing is rarely enforced here. I guess if someone peed in front of a cop, they’d get a ticket.

I swear, it never fails that I will see someone whizzing at a rest stop. I don’t think it’s a big deal at one of the pull off stops, where truckers stop for a rest, or even when there are free public toilets that are sometimes absolutely disgusting. But I always have a crapload of euro coins to get rid of. Why are these folks so cheap? Or do they just enjoy being exhibitionists? I don’t know… but pissing outside in cold, rainy weather fully in view in front of strangers says a lot about a person… and none of it is good.

The guy looked well dressed enough, though. Seriously? Was it really better to pee in the rain? Maybe I need to have a dick to know the truth about such matters.

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condescending twatbags, funny stories, Germany

The plot thickens… and Bill definitely should have borrowed my Mister Rogers hat!

So, as I wrote earlier today, we were visited by a strange man yesterday afternoon. Bill was the one who saw and talked to him, and thanks to Arran’s enthusiastic barking and Bill’s generally poor German comprehension skills (which are still superior to mine), we didn’t understand what he wanted. Then he came back a second time, a few minutes later, was more polite, and said something about the dogs.

Looking back on it, Bill did say that he’d never seen the guy before, and he also said the guy seemed “out of it”, or maybe not quite all there. He definitely thought it was a strange encounter, though since he only heard and understood a few words from him, we assumed he was upset about the dogs.

This morning, I noticed in our local Facebook group that one of the group members posted this (translated from German to English):

FYI: There is a strange, probably alcoholic guy walking around the Old Village Street right now ringing in various court entrances for no recognizable purpose – he also rang at our place, after I was at the entrance, he is speechless and with grimmi I quickly walked towards the village square. Are there any potential break-in targets? Little Corrupt Man, Mid 50s, black and yellow sweatpants, gray sweatpants.

Other group members posted these comments:

Aha… I think I ran into one of these guys when we lived in Jettingen!

So I wrote to Bill and asked if the guy he spoke to fit the above description. He said this:

Yes.  Mid to late 50’s.  Black and yellow jacket with a circular logo on the front left breast pocket (couldn’t tell if it was a company or sports team logo), and black pants.  He seemed to be disoriented and acted like he was an angry drunk.  When he got belligerent with me I thought he was going to accuse me of something and demand money.  But now he knows that the house is always occupied.

And then he wrote back that at first he thought the guy was a “tinker”, like the people who used to come to our door when we still lived in Jettingen, BW. But then he got a “Beaune, France” scam vibe from the guy. To explain, when we visited Beaune at Christmas time in 2019, we were victimized by crooks at a rest stop who popped one of the tires on our then brand new car. They didn’t manage to steal anything from us, but they did cost us about 1500 euros because we got stranded an extra night and had to get both rear tires replaced.

Then Bill said, “Yeah, I was thinking circus too.  Funny how they all seem to follow the same storylines.  He definitely went aggressive pretty quickly.  I think the dogs unnerved him.”

Well… that just goes to show that when you live in another country and don’t speak the language fluently, sometimes you fabricate explanations that could be plausible… But it also goes to show that the truth is often stranger than whatever you can make up to explain when weird encounters happen. And obviously, we aren’t the only ones who were visited by this odd guy looking for euros for his “circus”. My guess is that the only circus he’s collecting for is the one in his mind.

At least now we know if he comes back, not to open the door or bother talking to him. He’s probably up to no good.

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