The German Beach Towel Reservation System or Lost Crocodiles

Due to my long term status as the German girl abroad I have been target of many German jokes. As long as they are actually funny, I usually take them pretty well.

One stereotype that has been told to me in comical ways many times over is that of the German family hogging the pool in any given resort in any given warm town. Before the great clan of Germans retire to the sanctity of the dining area in order to enjoy a hearty serving of Spanish chorizo or Italian meatballs (one would not want to go overboard on novel food items here) they first calculate the path of the sun in relation to the overhanging palm tree leaf, aptly realizing when the shade will hit what chair and then plop down their towels at the best located beach chairs or a multitude of them just to be sure, thus reserving those for the remainder of their stay. This behavior is known to piss off every laid back, long sleeping, feet dragging tourist from other nations who has not understood that this is a sport and that they are loosing. The Germans are leading by a long shot.

I have known of families who have a rotating, elected family member who is in charge of getting up early, setting up the towels and then guarding the territory while everyone else is having their buffet style breakfast, where they heap as much fake scrambled eggs onto their plates as possible because you know, back home, they really don't have eggs and one better eat ones moneys worth and also one better steal some stale rolls just in case. But I digress.

After a long and warm absence from the homeland Miss Chris' parental unit has now returned to the mothership, thus reversing the route most retirees made. In those years navigating the globe fate had them living in warm, very warm places, gave them an abundance of heat and pools and beach chairs and lazy afternoons by the pool. One could say that the parental unit is saturated by the sun. One could also say that the parental unit has learned to look at their own people in a rather removed way, marveling at the funny, baffling and at times anal retentive habits of their compatriots. Their retirement has been made worthwhile by disregarding that they know how to behave back home(there is a distinct way one is to behave in Germany, there is a true right and wrong you "one" does not do things that one is not supposed to do. As a matter of fact one of the most often uttered phrases in Germany might be "das macht man doch nicht" meaning "one does not do that"). So in order to keep mantally agile the parental unit has made it their grand task in life to push poor German buttons at the small town grocery store (believe me, there IS a right way to wait in line), in a restaurant, at the train station and when gardening in the front yard and especially relating to Mittagsruhe (noon time rest, which means above all else, no mowing your lawn. It's a LAW). Screw Yoga. The joy they have been deriving from other people's anguish over petty incidences is the ultimate Schadenfreude which is keeping them young.

The parental unit is currently on a warm island having realized that winters in Germany sucks. Here they are doing all they can to help teach Germans to be better global citizen. I spoke with the parental unit last night to be told cheerfully that they had to end the call because they had an important task waiting for them. Apparently the German towel reservation system of the pool chairs has been extended and now some super confident Germans are placing towels onto best located chairs in the evenings, complete with the plastic crocodile or dolphin or whatever toy might be the rage in 2008. The parentals self-assigned task is to sneak out during the cover of darkness, remove the crocodiles and dolphins and nicely place them into scenic areas of the well manicured lawns. We may have a crocodile peaking out from behind a palm tree, a dolphin in the shower, and we end up with all the towels in a neat pile on a picnic table. "It is very difficult" the female parental unit informs me "one must be careful because there are stupid people walking around in the evenings when we are hiding the animals". I tell her that the crocodile she may be carrying under her arm at any specific reconnaissance mission could be her crocodile. She paused and then says almost disgusted "we don't look so dumb that anyone would believe we might own a crocodile like that". So apparently the quality standard of beach toys has plummeted along with German towel-pool-reservation behaviors so that the newly Germanized parental unit wishes not be associated with either.

Good to know the unit is doing good for the world: they are goodwill ambassadors in the name of bettering German-European relations. What pisses me off that I would have gotten in trouble for this when I was 14. So not fair.