Funny German Expressions: Why You Should Always Carry a Little Money in Your Pockets

Remember that post I wrote a while back about visiting Konya, Turkey? This week’s denglish lesson — courtesy of my lovely German wife — took place during that trip, and it was a real doozy. In fact, it came so unexpectedly I was actually stunned into silence… right before I started laughing.

It was our first day in Konya, and I was wearing one of those hidden travel pouches to carry around our money and passports. You know the kind I’m talking about? They clip around your waist, beneath your regular belt, just north of your pink parts. Usually they fit in there nice and comfortable, but because I’m a total genius, I decided to carry my entire wallet around in there too, so it bulged out as if I were sporting the world’s most dangerously impacted colon.

So basically I was the designated bank for the remainder of our trip; whenever we needed to pay for something, I would casually turn away from everyone in the vicinity, reach into my pants, unzip the travel pouch and pull out some euros. WARNING: It is impossible to do this in Konya without looking like you’re about to piss on a mosque — an act which would be infinitely more dangerous than just raising a fistful of money to the sky and declaring, “Hello Muslims! I am a white man with retarded amounts of cash on my person and precious little common sense with which to protect it. Would any of you care to kick me straight in my American balls and take it?”

On a side note: I think I’m way more likely to be robbed back home in Portland, Oregon, than I would ever be in Konya, Turkey. In Konya, the scariest thing I encountered was a squat toilet. (And while they may be ergonomically correct, they are also ergonomically disgusting.)

Anyway, toward the end of that first day, after I grew tired of pulling money out of my underwear, I tried to convince my wife it would be okay if she carried a little cash too. She didn’t want to at first, but she finally relented, holding out her hand in the middle of a busy Turkish market and saying:

“Ok, maybe you can give me a €50 so the dog doesn’t pee on me.”

*From the German expression, “Damit mich der Hund nicht anpinkelt,” which translates literally to, “So that the dog does not pee on me.” In all honesty, this expression doesn’t make much sense. At first I thought it was kind of like when a bird shits on your head — you know, just a random instance of bad luck — but my wife said it has more to do with, “not having empty pockets, so you don’t seem like a homeless person… because, I guess, a dog might pee on a homeless person.” (Then she explained it’s just a stupid expression which doesn’t mean anything and I should leave her alone so she could go get a snack from the fridge.)

And if you’d like to read more about Konya, Turkey, check out these two posts:
Discovering Konya, Turkey: The Top 10 Preconceived Notions Dislodged from My American Brain
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Visiting Konya: Pictures and Videos from Our Trip to Turkey