Back in 2012, just a few months after we moved to Germany, my wife made me watch all 5 seasons of Ally McBeal. That’s 112 episodes, each one lasting 45 minutes, which adds up 84 hours of total viewing time. (Coincidentally, 84 hours is exactly how long a man can have his testicles squeezed together in a woodworker’s vise before he begs for death’s sweet, everlasting embrace.)
As you probably know, Ally McBeal was a popular television series which ran from 1997 to 2002. It was a surreal comedy-drama, following a young, self-obsessed lawyer named Ally McBeal as she hallucinates her way through a series of romantic misadventures and magically relevant court trials, which hammer the moral of each episode into your skull with all the subtlety of a howitzer.
Ally works for a fictional law firm called Cage and Fish. One of the firm’s eccentric co-founders, John Cage, has a pet frog named Steffan (pronounced Steh-fahn.) After a series of unfortunate hijinks — involving a lot of girlish screaming, frog-tossing and the poorly timed flushing of toilets — Steffan is killed. A funeral is organized around the toilet in which Steffan met his demise, and the entire cast of the show listens as John memorializes his friend by playing the bagpipes. (The actor, Peter MacNicol, actually plays them in real life.)
I watched this scene with the predictable amount of stone-faced apathy until my German wife raised her eyebrows, nodded her head and announced:
THE WIFE: “It’s pretty impressive he can play the doodle-sack.”*
*The word “Bagpipes” in German is “der Dudelsack.”
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
See! And you thought you’d wasted 84 hours of your life!
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Haw!
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I’m impressed with what people are doing out of love :-) I loved Ally McBeal at the time, but it is very 90s, I think I wouldn’t watch it now. Or I’m just grown up, I don’t know ;-)
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I hear you. And some parts of it are really clever! (The ones with Robert Downey Jr.)
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Um… Dudelsack is the German word for bagpipes and it’s pronounced “doodle-sack.”
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Exactly!
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what? That is how we call those things in german …:P
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I know, right? And we English-speakers love it!
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Doodle is an onomatopoeia (yes, I looked it up), and sack is just what the unfilled bag looks like .. a flat, empty sack. Very easy ;-)
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When you hear the bagpipes being played, do you hear a sound like, “doodle?”
Because all I hear is, “BLEEEEAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRYEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLIIIIIIIIIIIDUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRR.”
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When I hear them regularly played, yes .. when they are just filled with air, no …
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What’s the definition of a Scottish gentleman? A man who can play the bagpipes — but *chooses not to.* :-D
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Haw! Nice.
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i’ve read some posts here and my question is: you are still married? really? you are so nasty writing about your wife… it makes me sad….:(
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Really? That’s what you took away from this post?
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My parents were married 71 years. They always said the reason they could “stand” each other that long was they could laugh at themselves and each other. (That is, didn’t take themselves too seriously! I think you and your wife have a healthy start toward your 71 years or whatever Ye Gods grant you!)
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What an awesome thing to say, Weggie. Thank you. I wish you the very same happiness!
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I once had some bagpipes, but they were so old and ill I had to have them put down. Now I’ve got a rescued mouthorgan. Soooo much better.
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First of all: NOT knowing Ally McBeal is a sin that you will never be able to make up to. Good you finally saved your immortal soul. *chuckle*
As for the “Dudelsack”… that’s just the German word for the bagpipes, even if sounds funny to you. :-) (Now that I think about it – it sounds funny to me too. LOL)
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