Excuses, excuses…

I hate people that have excuses for everything. But since we’ve already covered that I hate myself, a list of excuses for my blogging absence won’t further damage my self-perception. In my defense, I don’t make excuses, they just happen to come very naturally to me.

So without further ado, here are my six favorite excuses for my lack of posts:

(1) I didn’t have internet for a week and a half.

This isn’t entirely true but it is the most relevant excuse. There was internet to be had, just not in the friendly confines of my apartment. Getting access involved several flights of stairs, a different building, and unfriendly looks from the kids wondering why there was an American camped out in their shared kitchen space.

(2) I’ve hit my head so many times in my new A-frame apartment that doing anything other than walking and eating has been too taxing for my damaged brain.

This was a legitimate problem for the first couple of weeks. And yes, it took a couple of weeks for me to figure out how to not hit my head in the bathroom and kitchen. You’d think hitting your head really, really hard once would teach you the lesson, but it turns out that it takes at least eight really, really hard hits. To wash my dishes without risking concussion, I have to open the skylight window above the sink and stick my head out. There’s no such easy solution for the bathroom. Well, there is, but I’m not ready to do that just yet.

I added the black circles. Sticker is a little too detailed for the general public.

This sticker is actually on my toilet. My favorite part is the hat. I didn’t know this, but apparently if you pee standing up, your hat needs to be backwards. It’s more informal I guess. Luckily for me, I don’t wear hats. Unluckily for me, the reason I don’t wear hats is because I have an awkwardly shaped head that doesn’t work well with the standard hat structure.

(3) I’ve grown accustomed to my new German way of life too quickly, and have allowed a touch of monotony to creep into my everyday outlook.

Sometimes I forget I’m in a foreign country. The preseason routine was well established after a couple of days, and that routine took me away from appreciating and noticing my day-to-day experiences. I guess you could say the Honeymoon period is over.

(4) The walkable Döneria shut down with zero notice.

This was a huge setback. A guy can only eat so many PB&Js in one day. For the American readers, a Döner is a Turkish sandwich of shaved chicken or beef with tzatziki sauce and some other trimmings. It’s like a Turkish burrito. And I’m in love with them. Fellow player/blogger Jon Jaques knows what I’m talking about.

The tasche version of the döner. Last one I had before it closed.

The only drawback to this Döneria was that one of the owners was a little too happy that I was American and would ask me (every damn time) to take him back to America with me. Not only did he want me to take him back, but he wanted me to put him up in my house as well. I probably would have agreed (assuming he’d set up a personal Döneria in my kitchen) but I had a sneaking suspicion that he was the type of guy who’d be staring at me when I sleep. His sudden disappearance and the closure of his shop all but confirm that suspicion.

(5) I had to find another Döneria.

Okay, this didn’t take that long. There are Dönerias everywhere. And the people at my new place are much less invasive, if asking to hold my passport and going through it for ten minutes is considered less invasive. I honestly didn’t mind though, as I was too excited by the addition of feta cheese and pepperoncinis to my sandwich.

The dürüm version. Much more burrito-like. Much better. Now if only I could walk there.

(6) The German Grace Kelly broke my heart.

My sixth and final excuse. A couple of weeks ago, some members of the team and I went to Westfalen Therme, which is a spa about fifteen minutes outside of Paderborn. I’d never been to a place quite like it before. It was a mix of hotel resort, bath house, and peep show rolled into one — not that I’ve ever been to a peep show or bath house, but I’ve seen enough in movies to make the connection. Needless to say, it was quite an eye-opening experience.

But the thing that opened my eyes the most was this absolutely stunning blonde that spent the majority of her time in the pool area. She was classically beautiful and had a perfect set of teeth (I’m a teeth man). She almost made me want to become a dentist, or more accurately her dentist. I’d schedule her for free weekly appointments until I got fired.

Now I’ve never been good at picking women up, figuratively or physically. The last wedding I went to, I literally picked up a bridesmaid (there was an open bar) and continued to carry her around, almost dropping her on her head a number of times. As for the other kind of pick up, I have no lines and I have no game. As far as I’m concerned, going up to a random girl and striking up a conversation is as terrifying as the spider that I killed in bathroom two days ago (it was as big as my hand).

So if I suck at picking up women in English, how do you think I am in German?

What was I going to say to her? I’m hungry? I’m thirsty? I’m tired? There’s nothing sexier than a guy talking about his basic needs… With my limited German vocabulary, verbal trickery was clearly out of the picture, so I did what any other normal guy would do in my situation:

I swam creepily in her vicinity for about an hour.

It sounds even more pathetic when I type it out. I was like a toothless (and spineless) alligator, which as far as I’m concerned is the worst kind of alligator.

So there I was, lurking and working on my backstroke, making absolutely no progress and probably getting noticed on security tapes as someone to keep an eye on. Being in a public pool by yourself (the other guys were elsewhere) without anything (appropriate) to play with is awkward. What was I thinking?

I wasn’t. And while I wasn’t, she was playing catch with two little kids. Were they hers? I didn’t care. I’d make a great stepfather. Being a stepfather is like a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. If your stepchildren end up being idiots or criminals, you just blame it on their out-of-the-picture biological father and his inferior genetic make-up. If they end up Nobel Prize winners, it was all due to your fantastic rearing. I’d take that gamble.

Just as I was about to call it a day, the Patron Saint of Creeps and Weirdos came through in a big way, as somehow I found myself involved in her game of catch. I don’t remember who threw me the ball or whose idea it was to include me, but for the sake of my ego and this story let’s pretend that it was all her idea… And for the sake of honesty I think I do remember and it was definitely one of the little kids’ idea to throw me the ball.

Either way, my pickup tactic of being as passive and strange as possible paid off, as I was fully immersed in their game of catch for the next fifteen minutes. As far as games of catch go, I must say that I turned in quite a performance. None of my throws hit the little kids in the face (priority #1) and some of my catches were quite acrobatic (therefore obliquely displaying my ability to hunt and gather for her on her behalf).

But all good things come to an end, and as our game of catch did, I had an absolutely golden opportunity to say whatever I wanted. The ball ended up right in the middle, and we both converged at the same speed. She was carrying one of the kids, so it wasn’t like a slow-motion, music-filled scene out of a really bad romantic comedy, but it was the perfect opportunity given the circumstances.

As we met, she told me that it was lunch time for the kids, and then she told the little boy to thank me for a “nice game of catch.” The little kid, perhaps finally realizing that I’m a creep or perhaps just being a little kid, shied away and said nothing. Me, realizing that I’m both a creep and a little kid, followed suit and said nothing as well.

Not hello. Not goodbye. Not what’s your name. Not will you marry me. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In a matter of seconds, I went from being the creepy guy who has a knack for playing catch to the creepy guy who’s now even creepier because he doesn’t speak. Way to go, Zach.

As I left the spa, my only hope was that somehow she would find me and friend me on Facebook. I soon realized that she’d have to have some type of CIA training to accomplish that, as she didn’t know my name or anything else about me. I even Googled “creepy guy in Westfalen-Therme pool” and nothing led back to me. Unfortunately.

As the night wore on, I tried to rationalize my failed attempt at human interaction. She wouldn’t have understood what I was saying even if I had said anything. It’s inappropriate to hit on people in public pools. She wasn’t that attractive.

But that just sounds like another list of excuses.