I bought a house back in 2007, before I met the woman who would become my wife. It was a real bachelor pad, complete with carpet stains, spiders in the bathroom corners and an indoor swimming pool made entirely of beer cans. But once my wife and I began our relationship, I started referring to my house as our house. My car became our car. And my pile of dirty clothes under the bed became our little quarantine-worthy smallpox outbreak. What I’m saying here is, I stopped seeing things as mine vs. hers; an attitude my wife largely shares, unless she’s clumsily breaking things and then denying all responsibility.
So fast forward to the end of the summer of 2012, when my wife was about to fly back to Germany to find us an apartment and start her new job while I wrapped things up in the States. Shortly before she left, we planned a small goodbye BBQ with our friends and loved ones. We scrambled to clean the house mere hours before this social gathering took place, focusing most of our attention on the kitchen and making it look as clean as possible. (Displaying one’s kitchen honestly, the way it actually looks from day-to-day, is like prancing about in tighty whities and openly flaunting your skidmarks; nobody wants to see the truth.) So as my wife was taking some glasses out of the dishwasher and setting them in the cabinet above, she somehow managed to knock over her own beer with her elbow, shouting…
THE WIFE: “Ahhh! Dammit! Your kitchen isn’t big enough!”
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
“Geh nur hin, sie sitzt schon wieder in der Fischerhütte.”
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Daaaang! Is that an old saying?
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It’s the end of the Grimm fairy tale, “The fisherman and his wife.” “Go home, she’s back in her hut again.” Because the wife was never satisfied with what she had… ;)
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“Geh nur hin, sie sitzt schon wieder in dem alten Pott.”
you will find this sentence at the end….well, nearly, in:
http://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/fischer_dual.html
“Manntje, Manntje, Timpe Te,
Buttje, Buttje in der See,
Myne Fru, de Ilsebill,
Will nich so, as ik wol will.”
Still, I think there is a long way between a bigger kitchen and “Go at once. I wish to be like unto God.”, but you never know with these wifes…..
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It’s an old folktale about a fisherman and a magic dover sole fish (seriously).
They live in a literal pisspot and the fisher is granted a wish/wishes for setting the fish free.
The fish loses patience as the fisherman’s wife keeps wanting more and at some point snaps and yanks all their fancy crap away and they have to live in their pisspot again.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vom_Fischer_und_seiner_Frau
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Von_den_Fischer_und_siine_Fru_%281812%29
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That is a quote from a Grim-Fairytale, The fisherman and his wife, where the wife wanted to be King, as that was not enough Emperor and afterwards Pope – and at that wish it did BANG and she returned to be a fisherman’s wife in a small hut by the side of a small lake.
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It’s the last line of a fairy tale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fisherman_and_His_Wife
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No, that’s not an old german saying.
“Geh nur hin, sie sitzt schon wieder in der Fischerhütte.” is the finish of Grimm’s fairy tale “The fisherman and his wife”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fisherman_and_His_Wife
In this context that sentence is very misogynistic:
“Eventually, the wife goes too far when she wishes to become equal to God. The flounder revokes everything it granted, and the fisherman and his wife are back in their hovel.”
Sooooo…realized that you needed some extra-time for “moderating” my last comment to your post about becoming a permanent resident of Germany. Guess because of my explanation about Ami, Tommy and german chewing-gum-bitches.
Would understand it very well if you don’t publish this my comment cause just in the mood to kick an impolite old-wolf-Arsch. ☺
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LOL…nobody ‘sits’ in my kitchen…it is small, and my current rebuild won’t change the size much….but efficiency will be enhanced. And I don’t like fishing enough to have a hut, thanks!
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Thank you for the comment, Syrbal! Have a great day!
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Is this, I ask myself, the end of an era?
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The end of my bachelor era? Oh yeah. That ended years ago.
You?
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Well there has to be elbow room darn it lol :)
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Haw haw!
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Obviously you had a real bachelor household. *innocent smile*
The US-kitchens always appeared HUGE to me.
The fridges have sizes for giants and US-stoves are around double as big as germans…if you’re not just in a german restaurant-kitchen.
When going back and forth between US and Germany often felt like in “Gulliver’s travels”. Travelling to Brobdingnag (USA) and coming back to Lilliput (Germany).
My american friends find my kitchen “cute” and “tiny”.
Well, always asked myself for what american Lilliput-people need Brobdingnag-fridges and Brobdingnag-stoves but guess that’s a political incorrect question. ☺
P.S.
Would’ve posted this earlier but we just had a power outage for more than an hour….Vattenfall / Berlin. Luckily had some radio-batteries and there were no infos about an increase of the Ukraine-crisis. Will think now more serious about becoming Vattenfall-independent (solar energy).
Yeah, I’m a paranoid child of the cold war!
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Thank you for commenting when you could, Marlies! And I totally agree, American kitchens are huge compared to Germans ones.
Have an awesome day!
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Haha! Really? As if German kitchens are spacious? :-) At least none have mine have been…..YET.
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EXACTLY!! Thank you, Deanna!
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Are German kitchens super big? My wife is looking forward to going back the States and getting a decent sized kitchen. Ours now is technically on our enclosed balcony, about two-three feet wide in some places.
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HELL NO. German kitchens, at least those I’ve seen in apartments, are notoriously cramped. It’s what makes my wife’s comment so much more awesome. :)
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Yeah, I know that feeling. Everytime one of our sons is particularly naughty he is immediately referred to as “your son” to the husband. Logically, because they get all their good traits (including licking their plates) from me, and the bad one from him. Ha!
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Haw haw! I totally understand, Sandra. It is kind of an awesome thing to do.
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The only decently sized kitchens I have seen have actually been in expats homes/apartments. I am thoroughly repeatedly disappointed by German kitchens and thoroughly repeatedly miss American kitchens.
Also, your sentence, “Displaying one’s kitchen honestly, the way it actually looks from day-to-day, is like prancing about in tighty whities and openly flaunting your skidmarks; nobody wants to see the truth.” You are so right!! Spot on!!
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I know, right? The kitchen in our American house is HUGE compared to any apartment kitchens I’ve seen here in Germany. Can’t even fit two whole Germans in ’em…
:)
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ROFL – Aaaahhhh… interesting… all of a sudden it’s YOUR kitchen again? LOL That was quite hilarious – but what I don’t understand: American houses normally are much bigger than German houses and of course bigger than German apartments… – but I could imagine it probably didn’t have much to do with the size of the kitchen, right? More with the size of the elbow. LOL
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This post is hilarious. I’m actually a British person and this actually applies to us as according to Germans, “your houses are tiny”. Er. If you say so mate! I live in a gentrified part of Berlin and one of the things that attracted me to the apartment was the huge American-sized kitchen. I’m an awful cook but that kitchen sold the apartment to me. And where do we have our drinks parties, do our homework, and work on the blog? In the kitchen!
Thanks for sharing. :)
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