Do you have your papers?

Do you have your papers?

Col. Hogan ! Where is my pocket protector!

Hello Gentle Readers, I write to you from Dusseldorf, Germany.  I love this goofy sounding name.  It is a little known fact that this is where the pocket protector was invented.  Or maybe not.  I have no idea where the pocket protector was invented, but just saying “Dusseldorf” makes me feel a bit dorky.  And I know what you are thinking….”Gee, he must always feel dorky”.  OK, you got me.  I have no right to disparage a perfectly good German city name just because it sounds silly.

I am here to attend an industry function.  I will be here for four days and most likely I will not see anything more of it than the street that runs from the airport to the convention center, which is only a few kilometers long.  It is early December and pretty cold.  It is not snowing, but is very dreary.  I like cold weather, but the short days makes me want to hibernate.  There are good reasons why bears do it.  In fact, I have been working on storing belly fat all year long in support of bear hibernation.

Before I left home for this trip, I shaved off my mustache. If you look at my profile photo you will see I was sporting what many consider to be handsome manly growth.  But I got tired of it. (Not the manly part; the growth part)  I had been thinking about getting rid of it for a while now, so the day I was to depart, it came off.  In honor of going to Germany I shaved all but a short, Hitler style mustache, just under my nose.  I started to goose step into the next room to present my new look to my wife, Fraulein Intrepid Traveler, but I knew she would not be amused.  So I quickly dispatched the last of the offensive facial hair.  I guess I need an updated Glamour Shots photo for this blog, now.  The sad truth is that without the mustache I look like a very old Smurf.

If you are a faithful reader of this blog you know that I, among other things, am a master of foreign languages.  I can quickly adapt to any culture and flawlessly communicate fluently.   At least that’s what I wrote on the entry form when I applied for my new International Man of Mystery Identity card.  I am hoping that when it comes in the mail, I will also receive the disguise kit that includes a fake mustache.  

Anyway, back to language skills.  All my German vocabulary has been gleaned from listening to the Nazis from the “Indiana Jones” movies and from TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes”.  So my repertoire of German words is limited to “Dumkopf !”, “Achtung !”, and “I see nutheeng”.   I think one of the tricks to sounding like a German is to raise one eyebrow as you speak and look suspiciously at the listener, as if you just uncovered his plot to overthrow Fearless Leader.  And consider wearing a monocle.  It may be a good look for you.  

Irrespective of my linguistic skills, the German language is difficult to master.  Whoever invented it apparently just chained together a whole bunch of words into one long word to make new meaning.  In English we refer to that as a sentence.  Seems like a simple concept to me, but these Germans like to control their language as they like world domination.  It used to be their thing to invade another country just because it was sitting there minding its own business.  Take that, Poland! Achtung !  But Germany has finally gotten over that bad behavior.  Americans don’t need a VISA to enter Germany.  In fact, they hardly even looked at my passport.  I was anticipating a short, fat man wearing a trench coat and a sneer, to ask me for my papers.  I guess the control culture does not extend to border protection.  

After I had been in the country for six hours I texted my wife that no one here seemed very Nazi-like.  Getting carpet bombed in WW2 probably cured them of the tendency.  Now Russia’s Vladimir Putin has taken over the role of European Bad Boy.  Since I know fewer Russian words than German, it would be even harder to make fun of that language.  And Russia has their Nuclear Warheads, so I probably shouldn’t poke too much fun at them.  They may know where I live.  That International Man of Mystery disguise kit may be my only hope.