How To Get Angela Merkel Back For Good
Deutschland ohne us.
We thought she’d be weak without us but she’s stronger. Thought she’d be broke without us, but she’s richer. We thought she’d be sad without us; she’s pounding pilsner.
Merkel after mtg w/Trump: “times in which we could rely fully on others, they are somewhat over” https://t.co/qRQJocGiIo Then she did this:
The German term for dumping someone is jemandem den Laufpass geben (YAY-mon-dum dayn LOUF-poss GAY-bun), and literally means “to give someone his discharge papers,” a.k.a. the veritable dispensation of a giant cosmic jackboot, ejecting one from the army of love. (Don’t blame me for the Germans’ weird metaphors, man.) My fellow Americans, it’s not hard to read the beer foam: Angela has dumped us. She’s publicly changed her relationship status from ES IST KOMPLIZIERT to GO FUCK YOURSELF. She’s blocked us on Snapchat. She’s swiped whatever direction you swipe when you reject someone. She’s given us the Laufpass, and she’s fucking loving every second of it.
But it’s cool. We’re fine without her. Like, we’re doing really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really great. Better than ever.
But let’s say, just for the sake of a thought experiment — something we now really enjoy doing as, like, a hobby, with all of the time we no longer have to spend on our RELATIONSHIP — we wanted to see if we could get her back.
The first thing we’d realize, after a few failed attempts with a boombox and the Dolly Parton version of “I Will Always Love You,” is that grand romantic gestures do not have any discernible effect on a people who detest any display of public emotion that is not directly related to Robbie Williams leaving Take That or soccer (more on that in a minute).
No, everybody knows that if we wanna win back our lover, we gotta get with her friends. We must ingratiate ourselves into, and make ourselves indispensable to, her posse, as my mother still calls a group of people who hang out together because she heard the New Kids on the Block say it in the 1989 Hangin’ Tough “documentary” I owned on VHS and insisted on watching every morning before middle school. In short, we must get good at doing the things that Angela’s friends like, so that they find themselves wanting to hang with us again without even realizing it. Before we know it, we’ve gone from wannabes to marquee members of die Crew, and Angela is simply so accustomed to finding us chilling everywhere she goes that she’ll forget she Heisman’d us in the first place.
So, here are the things we have to feign expertise in, schnell.
Soccer. I’m sorry, Fußball. The “real football,” as we will now call it henceforth, is very important to us, and we definitely understand it. The vicissitudes of the Bundesliga are extremely interesting and I for one would like to read about them in the newspaper for a long time, and then discuss them at length with anyone who also would like to discuss them at length. If we can only figure out who the favorite team of all of Angela’s friends is, and then orate over beers until very, very late into the night about what makes that team good at real-football — and thereby what counts as being good at real-football in the first place — then we will be BFFF once more.
Squats. I am not talking about exercise, which Germans call Sport (SHPO-AHT) and perform exclusively in the out-of-doors with doofy-looking nordic walking sticks. Sport is also important to Germans, mind you, but it does not involve squats. By squat I mean a besetztes Haus, or “occupied house,” an abandoned or neglected apartment building where a bunch of people who have taken residence are are so pissed off about a cause that they don’t need working terlets. Their waste just dissolves itself into the rage-ether as they make homemade angry signs on sheets and hang them out the windows. (Just kidding, they bathroom in buckets and such, and it’s pretty hardcore.) Berlin used to be absolutely packed with squats, but you don’t see too many nowadays. However, Angela’s best frenemies in the rival cliques all spent their requisite few months in squats in the late 80s to earn their Chumbawamba cred, so if you want to make her both impressed and jealous, you’d best start painting some sheets in solidarity.
Cutting your own hair in your bathroom while drunk. I actually think this might just be one person one time, but you should probably get good at it anyway, just to be safe.
And, finally and very much most importantly, swimming pools, specifically, lack of adequate ginormous German-style Freibäder (FRY-bae-dur), or outdoor public pools, in Angela’s own fair city, where the appearance of any blue sky means that residents are required by law to plonk down on a patch of grass by the pool with a giant picnic and without any sort of sun protection, and bake, eat, drink and occasionally possibly swim from dawn until nightfall.
So imagine the ire of Berlin’s 3.5 million swimming enthusiasts, as they learn that half of the city’s storied open-air natatoria and all-day snack-and-beer hedonism depots are not yet open for the season. According to this hard-hitting reportage in Die Tageszeitung, you’ll never believe the reason for the unacceptable shortage of “free baths,” as Freibäder literally translates to — the proper German term for swimming pool is Schwimmbad (SHWIMM-baht), or “swimming tub,” but cool young people just say der Swimming Pool (dare SWIMM-ink PEWL). The reason, friends, is that the Berlin weather did not cooperate with the Berlin pool-opening schedule.
According to Matthias Oloew, spokesman for the Berlin Bathing Authority (a thing), Berliners need to hold their goddamned horses (I’m paraphrasing my translation slightly). Just because it’s suddenly hot doesn’t mean that the weeks-long (and heavily regimented) water-chlorination and cleaning process can be rushed. “It’s not like you can just throw water in the pool and then open,” he explained to the Tageszeitung, exasperatedly. But, as a wise man once said, “Sorry doesn’t put the Triscuit crackers in my stomach,” by which I mean standard German ineffectuality masquerading as rule-lust does not make the Berliners sweating their asses off in line for the overcrowded Prinzenbad feel any better. All’s I’m saying is that if you want all Germans everywhere to love you unconditionally forever, you find a way to get a public swimming pool open at the first sign of the sun.
So, los geht’s. While our country’s dickhead psychopathic frat treasurer who only got into the frat because he’s a legacy — and whose dumb ass, need it be said, got us dumped in the first place — is busy distracting the world with another typo (Danke schön, Mistake Devil!), we must set in motion our foolproof plan to re-woo the one we cannot live without, and we must do it at the breakneck speed of a Berlin bicyclist buzzing past some dipshit tourists walking in the bike lane, before she finds a new date to the Prom. BRRING, BRRING, tolls the passive-aggressive handlebar-bell of our destiny. Whatever he said, whatever he did — we didn’t mean it, Angela. We just want you back for good.
And, bonus: if we master all of this stuff in the correct order — we cut our own hair in the non-functioning squat bathroom and then use the clippings in some anti-fascist guerrilla art, then host a pickup football match, and then get a closed public pool to open and go swimming, we will not only subvert our own nightmare government to regain the trust and love of the country that spurned us, but we’ll also subvert the fact that we don’t have a working shower.