On Couchsurfers
Madeleine had a great idea. Couchsurfers. It makes a whole heap of sense in our large palatial home to make it available to couchsurfers. We will need to couchsurf the USA and wherever we end up next year, Couchsurfers need somewhere to stay in scenic Nelson and our house's room after room means that it is the perfect place to stay, without them being too obtrusive. So we signed up.
This was a mistake. I mean maybe in the future it will be better. What we had hoped for was a few Couchsurfers, and a night of easy conversation and perhaps a board game. Instead we got Europe 1939. Germans One and Two arrive, as in Czechoslovakia when it was annexed, and an uneasy calm settled across the flat. While they were pre-booked, as we learnt, this didn't really count for anything. The Germans were liars and could not be trusted.
I got a phone call that day from Germans Three, Four and Five. At this point, I had not really met Germans One and Two and had assumed that they would all be there for one day which was okay. I agreed to doubling our German inhabitants. There were many things that I struggled with on the first day, the way the one guy kept playing shit songs from 1996 on the guitar, the overbearing presence of all these people in the house, and the use of the drier on night one was a real cross cultural misunderstanding. It had moved to the forcible German occupation of Memel, in Lithuania. A minor act of aggression, but all these actions reinforced in my mind the underlying concept of our home being essentially theirs. Occupation being nine-tenths of the law, or something like that. I heard that drier bouncing around as I tried to sleep and to me it sounded like the sound of war drums.
Day Two and they were still in the house. Poland had been occupied. That night there were two more Germans in the house for dinner. They were openly speaking in German in the house, in contempt of the house rules and they were digging into the coffee as if it was theres for the taking.1 As if by sleeping on the floor of the living room gave them some sort of territorial rights.
They, ironically, played Risk that day. I slept a very uneasy sleep that night.
One of the Germans was trialling for most obnoxious German award, when I first met him he had a slovenly, unkempt appearance. He was a dentist, or finishing off his dentistry and there sure were some tedious conversations about dentistry. There were also some tedious conversations about marijuana. Basically when he started talking, I tried to zone out. It seemed there was a reciprocal sort of arrangement there, as on the Saturday we tried to play a board game he didn't listen to any of the rules and played like a real dick. No-one liked him. He was the worst.
His travelling companions were better. In fact, if it had been any of the other two and just them for the weekend, it would have been fine. If it had have just been the German Jerk, he probably would have been kicked out. The guy started singing Hakuna Matata in German as we went for a calming walk in the countryside.
They wouldn't have stayed if not for the weather, which destroyed any chance of them leaving. But there was a real sense that they would potentially never leave. As if, once they had created a beachhead, the rest of the Operation Sealion task force would take control and it would be Jackboots to London or something. I kept thinking more Germans would turn up, that they had left some sort of secret German signal. They were rude, which probably goes without saying. But still, trying to get me to cook them dinner on Saturday night at 8pm when, everyone knows, it is not dinner time and it is really just bedtime.
We also ended up talking about people with disabilities and you can imagine what happened with the conversation. The lack of reflexivity, see Margins: Experience, Research, Social Change (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1989) for more clarification Dad, from this guy was horrifying, but also deeply, deeply German. Also telling that only one of the Germans stood up for people with disabilities. Just like in 1939. And then, the next morning, they left. Except they have left their stuff piled in the spare room. We are expecting the Stukas next week.
1. There is not actually a house rule about speaking German, I kept on pulling out my WW2 German. Rusty but effective for hurrying them when in the shower, getting their attention or discussing the finer points between Gesselschaft and Gemeinshaft. There was also no explicit instruction about using the Coffee. There definitely should have been.
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This is golden. There are rules to couch surfing that are important to stick to.
ReplyDelete1. no more than 2 nights;
2. no more than 1-2 people;
3. no german guys, its dangerous and unnecessary.They have not forgotten Dresden, and they are a cunning and ruthlessly efficient race, they will get their revenge anyway they can.
but abiding by these rules will not allow the type of hilarious description that you have just engaged in, so I sincerely hope you continue on your quest to adopt more couchsurfers into your lovely home.