I might as well move to Berlin.

Har har! My life! Rant time. D:<

So, last night I wasn’t “allowed” to work on my essay for about 2 hours because the German Wonder had received three DVD’s in the mail from some obscure relatives in B.C. and she and Helga wanted to watch them “NOW.” I put the first one in and start it and go into the washroom to wash my hair over the side of the tub (it was in need of a wash, sheesh.) I’m in there for like, 4 minutes, and am turning the faucet when all I hear it “Kristen?! {reeeally loudly, ‘cause she’s right outside the damn door} KRISTEN?!” And I’m all “WHAT?! DDD:<” and she’s says (and I quote) “Oh come oooonnn. The thing is stuck.” And I say “What?!” “The thing is stuck.” And I mumble “Well what the hell am I supposed to do about it, if it’s stuck, it’s stuck.” So I turn the water off and stumble out the door and she’s standing there like a freakin’ goose, or something equally annoying, and says “It’s stuck. Fix it.” And I say “I heard you the first million times. There’s not much I can do if it’s scratched.” So I take the damn thing out and check for scratches and there are none. There’s a few smudges, so I deal with them and put it back in. I push play and wait and it “gets stuck” again. I take it out again. I’m cleaning it off for the second time when she says “Maybe I get Mike to fix it.” And I respond with “If the DVD’s scratched, that man won’t be able to do anything.” “Oh.”

So I try it again.

Nothing.

I try it again, fast forwarding it, trying to get past the moment it freezes, nothing. I try it AGAIN, nothing. So I tell her and Helga “No, it’s not going to work. I’ll put one of the other two in.” So I do, then I go and wash my hair and by the time I’m done, it’s done, and I put the third one in after I’m informed that “Oh, then you have to stay here and make it work.” To which I mumbled “I have a freakin’ essay to write.” Plus a line of old-school swears that would make King Henry proud, but the old bats didn’t hear. So I sit there and let my hair dry and watch the stupid slide show of relatives I don’t know building the front of a barn and stuff. It ends, and she tells me to put the first one in again. I tell her that if it didn’t work before, it’s not going to work now because it “doesn’t fix itself with magic.” But I put it in again. And nothing. And again. And nothing. And again, and nothing. And by now I’m pretty much ready to throw the thing out the window and let the idiots behind us use it as a party game because the damn German music at the beginning is driving me even crazier than I already was.

So I tell her “No, it’s not working.”

And then she has the gall, the absolute gall to tell me that it’s because {and I quote} “You’re just not patient enough *laugh laugh laugh*” So I spin. I spin and spit out “Not patient enough?! I have a freakin’ ESSAY due on TUESDAY and I’m down here TRYING to make it work! I tried about 10 freakin’ times!! Not patient enough?! Oh that’s it.” So I mash stop on the remote and turn off the machine and turn on the TV for the idiots and storm upstairs.

I went back down to make tea. Twice. In my HUUUUGE mug that she doesn’t like me using because when I put it in the microwave she claims it “uses too much hydro.”

So I was just downstairs, getting water, it was about 1PM.

She reading some German letter thing.

She asks me if “they get the email in Germany”.

And I’m all “everyone gets emails. Do you mean the internet?”

She nods and does her German “Oh ya oh ya” thing. So I say “Ya, why?” I can feel the dread start to rise already. I know what’s coming. She was wondering if one could conceivably email a store in Germany and ask how much a pillow is. So I say “Ya, but I don’t type in German, so you’d have to type.” She pretty much ignores me and keeps going on about emailing Germany. She then says that it’s “too late now.” And I’m all “What? Why is it ‘too late’?”

She thinks email is like the phone. It’s about 8PM there, so she thinks the store is closed, therefore, it’s too late to email. I tell her emailing is not like phoning. If they’re not there, they’ll get the email tomorrow. But she’d have to type, ‘cause, surprise, I know no German. So I make a hasty retreat back upstairs.

Oh boy, I can not wait.

And this weekend she’s been more pushy then ever on her “You HAVE to go for walk!” thing. It’s like the weekend before my annotated bibliography was due: she must have this thing in her head that says “Oh! Kristen’s working and has something due, let’s inconvenience her to the N’th degree!”

Oh, and yesterday when I was eating lunch downstairs (a mistake, which is why when I’m here I don’t eat lunch, but she nagged me into it) she was talking about how the German Hour was cancelled. Every Sunday, some German guy plays German music for an hour. And talks in between the music in German. And she tapes it and listens to it. So, apparently, it was cancelled after “29 years {or so says she}” because the dude didn’t have enough money to keep it going. “For one hour, he has to pay $2,100 {I think that’s how much she said}.” So he was asking people to send in money because he “didn’t was to sell his house and not have anywhere.” And I’m thinking ‘He’s willing to suggest he’d sell his house just to get people to give him money? That’s low.’ Because, really, even if he had been doing it for 29 years, selling your house to keep a one hour German radio show going sounds pretty stupid to me. She says that “the old people don’t send in money and the young people just don’t care.” And here I am again, thinking ‘That’s ‘cause the “young people” have better things to spend their money on.’ And I tell her that the “old people have nothing else to do, they might as well give him money.” So she flusters about and eventually I say “Maybe the radio company was bought out by an American company or something, who knows?” and she turns into German-Nazi-Woman and says “No, it’s owned by a Jew.”

*sighs*

Really, history and sociology major here. I HATE having to hear shit like this daily because I live with a German witch.

So I tell her, quite loudly, “That makes no difference. His or her religion has NOTHING to do with it.”

And she goes “Oh” and stops talking.

Did I feel bad? No. Not at all. Because I’ve pretty much had it with her and Helga saying “Oh, it’s because he’s a Jew” or saying that “Those coloured people have no discipline” or that the noise behind our house {which is, during the weekday, children playing because there’s a Muslim school nearby} “those Muslims” who “don’t know how to keep their kids quiet.” {It’s a freakin’ school! Kids play at recess! GAH!}

I know, mom tells me every time she comes to visit that they’re “old and stuck in their ways” but as a history and sociology student I can’t just sit there and let them talk racial slander. It’s not in my nature. And I’m just getting SICK of it.

So I go to school and tell my friend Kate about it who laaaaughs at a German named “Helga” and then tries to calculate how much longer until I snap and she reads my name in the newspaper.

So fun! D:<