As you are probably aware, my wife is German. She is also a Gymnasium teacher here in Hannover, Germany. This means she teaches students between the ages of 10 and 18 — or 5th grade through 12th. That’s a lot of teenagers, man, and if you’re anything like me, you know teenagers are a bunch of filthy, disgusting little shitbags.
Yes, there are exceptions. If you have a teenager at home, I’m sure he or she is a perfect little angel who burps love and farts rainbows. But the rest of them are 100% self-focused, with underdeveloped personalities and little or no regard for those around them. And they stink. God dammit, how hard is it to slap a little Old Spice under them pits, Dieter von Reekenstein? Mother of God, I would rather dip my nuts in hot coffee than be trapped on the U-Bahn amidst a gaggle of these screeching retards.
Luckily, my wife does not regard her students with the same kind of vehement hatred I do. She loves her students, and she’s a damn good teacher. That said, even she stumbles across the occasional moment of annoyance. Like the other day, when she was trying to organize a field trip for her 8th grade class; she offered to take them to one of the museums here in Hannover, or even the incredibly awesome Hannover Adventure Zoo. The field trip wasn’t part of the class — she just offered her own free time in order to do something fun and educational with them. And like the ungrateful 13-year-old balls of snot they are, they insisted on going to Hamburg instead. Not even, “Thank you for the idea, but we would really love to see the Port of Hamburg,” or “Would it be possible to tour Hamburg’s Old Town instead?” They were just like, “We’d rather go to Hamburg.” Period.
So my wife came home that night and explained the situation to me. She took a sip of wine, shook her head in exasperation and said:
“I tell you, you give them your little finger, and they take your whole hand.”
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
Well, I just hope your wife keeps adamant about this. It’s the zoo or it’s nothing. Those brats will otherwise wreak havock (which they will anyway)
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Sorry, I’m with the ungrateful shits.
Your wife couldn’t possibly really believe teenagers would rather look at chimps than go to Hamburg.
Hamburg has a lot of chimp people too, though.
I’m always amazed nobody flings shit in overrun Mönckebergstraße.
Than again there probably are passive-aggressive chimps too.
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Yeah, I don’t miss teaching teenagers. At. All. (I do love your descriptions of them, though.) I had some fabulous, wonderful, fun students, and luckily those are the ones I remember (though every now and then something reminds me of one of the assholes). Kids would ask me now and then to take them on a field trip, and I always said no. “Awww, pleeeease? Why not?” “Because I don’t like you that much. I only travel with people I like.” Sometimes I’d just scoff and say “Would YOU take you on a field trip?” (amazingly I did have a good rapport with most of my students over the years)
Every two years, though, I brought a group to Germany, and we had fabulous times! “Frau H, NOW I understand why you love this country so much!” The little bastards say something like that, and a teacher’s heart melts.
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Teenagers: asshats in any language.
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Easy, just take them to Hagenbeck’s zoo in Hamburg ;-)
And the Denglish is once again a superb example that some German sayings just don’t translate. I often get the blank stare from hubby, too, when I try to. Oh well…
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I’ve been watching a lot of House on Netflix lately. His detached self-serving methods of enlightenment are the best those kids could hope for if I was in her situation… Walking through the halls from one class to the next and bathroom breaks lasting longer than 5 minutes would all count as “field trips” in my book.
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god so much entitlement, i swear i was savagely grateful for any adventure outside of the classroom back in the day…
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This somehow makes me recall…well, something, but then nature, in all its helpfulness, makes me black out just long enough to forget the past.
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No Merkel diamonds for ungrateful teenagers?
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Heh heh, not this time. If I start rating my wife’s Denglish quotes, I’ll have to start rating them all. :)
Thank you for reminding me though! You rock, Mr. Swing.
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haha, as of June this year I have FOUR teenagers in the house. Can you believe it? I’d love to send them all to Hamburg with your wife. For, like, a year. But believe it or not, I actually wrote an “Ode to Teenagers” on my blog not too long ago. There is something to be said for not having to wipe bums anymore, for people actually sleeping through the night (and most of the day), for being able to tell dirty jokes without covering someone’s ears…
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Haw haw! Right on, Sine. Right on.
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I have to admit yourself, most of the time I totally share your feelings towards most teenagers… scary, isn’t it? *sigh*
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I’m not a fan of teenagers either and I was one only 10 years ago…
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