Back in February of 2013, my German wife and I were driving through a small village in Niedersachsen when we decided to stop and take a look around (which obviously means she made us stop so she could do some window shopping.) And as usual, my wife was behind the wheel because, A: just looking at the Autobahn gives me a panic attack, and B: I haven’t driven a stick shift since I was 16 years old, so the clutch would probably detonate the moment my foot touched it.
As she parked the car, I noticed my wife reaching for something under the seat; a rectangular piece of paperboard with a rotating dial on the front indicating the time of day. She spun the dial and set it on the dashboard facing outward. I climbed out of the passenger seat, looked through the windshield and saw she’d set the dial to the exact time we’d arrived.
Now, there were absolutely no other cars to be seen. No people around either. In fact, the whole place seemed to be asleep. (Asleep or dead. It’s hard to tell with these village Germans.) I couldn’t understand why it would matter how long we parked there, or if some parking inspector would actually be dick enough to check our dial and ticket us for staying too long. Furthermore, I could not understand my wife’s reluctance to take full advantage of a rule system so naive it actually bases itself on trust. Holy shit, I wanted to spin that dial so hard it would say we got there tomorrow.
Anyway, I pointed to the dashboard and said to my wife, “Why not just crank that thing super late, so if you’re asked, you can say, ‘I’m just a silly little German. I made a mistake.’ ”
Without even looking, she dropped her keys in her purse, stepped up onto the sidewalk and said, “Germans don’t make mistakes.”
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
My high school Deutschelehrerin would say the same thing to us all the time. I’ve grown to believe it.
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I’m surprised no one has latched on to your comment about not feeling comfortable driving stick.
Sincerely,
Another American living in Germany who doesn’t know how to drive stick.
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Haw haw! Right on, Nick.
It’s not that we can’t drive stick, it’s that we shouldn’t.
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I actually can’t (shakes head slowly in embarrassment). A German tried to teach me once, and it was going ok, but then I moved away and haven’t tried again.
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I’m American and I drive a stick just fine. Of course I have also raced motorcycles so…
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They are playing some kind of motorcycle racing event on the TVs at my gym right now. Like, all the time. What is it? Motocross? There are 5 drivers, and they ride in something like mud or dirt around in a loop. (I have no idea about these things.)
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Sounds like motocross. Do they ride for 45 minutes?
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I don’t think so. It seems more like 2 or 3 laps around the loop… but maybe I was just seeing the highlight reel. Any guesses?
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There are many forms of motorcycle racing and I am not familiar with all of them. I mostly did enduro racing (off road racing) and always said motocross was for crazy 18 year old’s. I tried Hare and Hound once and felt it was to hard on an expensive motorcycle, 3-4 hours straight not stop on a 1-6 mile loop is what I remember. They also have Supercross which is indoors and like motocross. And many more including races on pavement. Here is the American Motorcycling Association (AMA) rule books for each race type.
http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/racing/rules
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