As you probably know, I am an American expatriate living with my German wife in Hannover, Germany. I am enrolled in an A1-level intensive German language and integration course, and you know what we just started learning the other day? How to read clocks and communicate time. How do Germans tell time, you ask? I have no idea. Apparently, they use unbreakable cryptography while dropping fistfulls of acid.
Here’s the deal — in America, we typically use the 12-hour clock to relate time. (Americans who use the 24-hour clock are either, A: In the United States Military, or B: Trying to act tough because they have little wieners.) When speaking to one another, Americans discuss time in terms of 12-hour cycles, specifying a.m. and p.m. for Ante Meridian and Post Meridian. This is why we say things like, “That filthy bum was drunk at 8:00am!” and “…but so was I, so I sat down next to him and we partied until the cops made us leave at like 6:00am the next day. Those dicks.”
Predictably, Germans use a more complicated and entirely counterintuitive system for relating time to one another. They use either the 12-hour clock or the 24-hour clock in conversation (it’s not always the 12-hour clock, no matter what your German teacher tells you), so you never know which one you’ll get. Also, they use a totally backwards, Caligula-insane way for expressing half hours. They say “halb,” meaning “half,” but it does not mean 30 minutes past the hour; it means literally half of the hour before. So, taken all together, when someone says the time is “halb drei,” they do not mean the time is 3:30pm — they mean it’s 2:30pm (or 14:30, if they want to make damn sure you walk away confused).
The German language uses words like “vor,” “nach” “kurz” and “viertel,” much like the English words for “before,” “after,” “shortly” and “quarter,” respectively. So, with the 24-hour clock and pre-half hour in mind, let’s take a few examples and translate them directly from German into English:
“zehn vor halb drei” = “ten before half three” (2:20pm)
“zehn nach halb fünf” = “ten after half five” (4:40pm)
“zehn nach halb vier” = “ten after half four” (3:40pm) …which is also…
“zwanzig vor vier” = “twenty before four” (3:40pm)
“kurz vor halb sechzehn” = “just before half sixteen” (between 3:26pm and 3:29pm, but not more than 5 minutes before the half hour)*
So, in my tiny little walnut brain, I have to translate these German words and numbers into English, convert everything from the 24-hour clock into the 12-hour clock, then decipher the monkeyshit-tossing logic behind the German half hour.
Now, I agree the 24-hour clock makes more sense than the 12-hour clock in terms of logistics and scheduling. What does not make sense, however — in English or German — is speaking about time in relative terms, what with all the “half before” and “quarter after” tomfuckery going on. So, when it comes to speaking informally about time — between two thinking, breathing human beings — I have developed a beautifully simple solution which will solve the problem worldwide: just say the exact time, to the minute, every time.
Just say the numbers, man! No tricks. Everyone gets along fine. There won’t be any fights before snack-time because everyone knows it starts at exactly 10:35. DING DING! Milk and cookies for everyone.
*To be fair, a German probably wouldn’t say this to someone on the street unless they were being a total dick.
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Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
haha, 3 more weeks and I’ll be back in the land of normal people…..but only for 22 days.
Maybe I’ll start a blog, but I think a lot of people don’t have the sense of humor it takes to get me. They will think i’m just being a dick, then it will turn into an argument and some little cry baby is going to get their feelings hurt, then they will tell their friends about me and how i’m such a dick and they will start protesting, then my fans will jump in and kick hippy asses. Then it will turn into a war between men and …well pussies like France…then the world will end. You don’t want the world to end do you?.
Me blogging = end of world.
But what the hell, i’ll do it anyway. Now I just need to figure out how the hell I start.
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I am absolutely okay with the world coming to an end as a result of your future blog.
All you gotta do is go to the link below, sign up, choose a template and you’re off to the races! And do NOT worry about people disliking your content: the right people will find it, love it, and your audience will grow. And you never know what might happen when you start building a following. You just might wind up blogging for a living and loving it.
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sweEETTTT, I’m gonna be famous.
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Heck yeah you are! I’m psyched!
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ok, done with work, so here are the conversations be tween me and other Germans, my wife mainly. First my wife thinks adding “ey” after cuss words (bitchey, fuckey, assey….ect) make them nice or sweet or some shit. Also, my wife’s dad’s name is Jack and he lives in Germany (you’ll need that little piece of information later).
About 2 months ago we all got sick, turns out we had salmonella (because apparently, Polish people don’t believe in cooking eggs and think its ok the leave the milk baking outside in the sun….sitting next to the grill that’s been hot for 2 hours….and the fire and charcoal type of grill too, those F’ers stay hot.)
Me: so what the hell is wrong with us? did we get AIDS?
Wife: No we go the magen darm.
Me: What in the ever living F is “the magen darm”?
Wife: the stomach and intesthongs….virus
Me: the intesthongs virus huh? I think you mean intestines babe.
Wife: well they are both stringy.
We have Thanksgiving diner every year here and last year I was really busy (because my wife can’t cook American food for shit, well shes got the Mac n Cheese down) so I had her stuff the Turkey.
Wife: I’m not sticking my hand up that birds assy.
Me: Woman you’re a nurse, are you serious….I’m sure you’ve wiped your share of geezer asses, that’s not counting the fact that we have 3 kids….now violate that bird, hunny.
Wife: I don’t want to, maybe it can feel it or someting.
Me: Listen, there comes a time in every womans life, when she has to stuff the bird. Now put your big girl britches on, suck it up, quit your bitching and stuff the turkey…..ok there sugartits?
Wife: what…what sucking it on…You suck it on, I’m not sucking it on nothing…..I don’t have sugar in my tits and I don’t know what big girl bridges are. You put on your big boy bridges and do it yourself dicky.
Me: Sugartits is just a name….I didn’t mean it literally, and britches are what they called underwear back in the day.
Wife: I don’t know what you want from me, you mean thongs?
Me: no that would be skinny girl underwear, I said big girl unterhosen (for some reason I find that word hilarious)
Wife: So you want me to wear thongs and rape that turkey….you’re a perverse.
Me: Pervert babe, the word is pervert.
Wife: what ever perverts
Me: Pervert babe, I’m just one person, no need for the “s”
Back in Maryland, we had to get our car inspected. My wife calls me while i’m up on a roof laying shingles (I was working construction with me sisters boyfriend at the time)
Wife:Hey, the thing fell off.
Me: That could apply to 14,000 things…at least…..what thing fell off of what?
Wife: The thing on the car.
Me: I’m still lost babe, what thing? describe it.
Wife: its round.
Me: Really that’s all I get.
Wife: it spins too.
Me: the steering wheel?
Wife: yeah…wheel…that one.
Me: What the hell did you do, how do you rip off a steering wheel? (I thought she really did too, like you said, German women are strong)
Wife: I didn’t do nothing, whats a steering wheel.
Me: I explain it
Wife: no, not that. You have 4….now I only have 3.
Me: You really mean a wheel, did you hit something….or someone?
Wife: no it just feel off.
so we talk alittle more and I come to help, but before I get there she has this conversation with someone walking down the road and tried to help.
Guy: Do you have a jack?
Wife: yeah I have a Jack but he’s in Germany…he can’t help us here.
Today at work we had to take the restmull (the black one) out. We all joke around with each other and this is just how we talk….I’m not really a dick.
Me not knowing the black trash pick up was tomorrow: Where should I take this
Guy from work: Take it da ruber on the walk side.
Me: what..why..what the F was that? Ok first, nice grammar asshole. Second, pick a language you dick, you’re giving me a headache and thirdly I think you mean sidewalk. Its sidewalk, just know like ….you walk on the side, wait…walk side…now I get it, but its one word….so…well shit, you must really hate English huh?
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BAW HAW HAW HAW! Oh man. Those are so great.
You have GOT to start your own blo making fun of the Germans. You just gotta.
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If I had time for it (a blog) I would, but its kind of hard to find time to do things…..my wife is sick (and still an asshole, actually I would say shes more of an asshole than normal. See my wife is completely backwards from normal women, I get the pleasure of have a wife that is a dick 3 weeks out of the month……then when “that time” come shes nice……lately it is never “that time”. Maybe if I kick her up the pee hole she will bleed a little and start being nice again.)
But basically my day goes like this. My kids wake me up at 6:30 am (or as the germans would call it, 5 vor veirtel nach :02 plus 3 minuten mal (x) 4 nach halb 5 divided by 10). Then I get the kids ready for kindergarten where they will be unsupervised by teachers that arn’t worth a damn, they will fall, fight, bleed and try to murder each other for 6 hours. (what kind of fucking kindergarten (thats what they call day care here) is open at 8 (most days the teachers arn’t even there until 5 after) until 2pm….thats 6 hours….no one works 6 hours. Then I go to work where I am technically a mexican. Than I come home, cook, clean, get the kids ready for bed….then I lay down and wait for them to all come in my bed and terrorize me until 6:30am. Then do it again…….I really need a life….and a friend.
and I noticed our monologues are a LOT like, that’s what got me so interested in your blog. I had to read the whole thing in 1 night. Thinking “holy shit, I’m not alone”
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I love your comments. But seriously, if you’ve got time to bust out this kind of humor on my blog, why not make a super fast WordPress blog and dump it all there? I’d totally read it! And so would a lot of other people.
But hey, if you want to keep dropping these gems in our comment section, awesome! Keep it up!
Man, you need a little Mexican vacation. :)
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