Culture shock, Germany: so clean!
I don’t know where this picture was taken. The one thing I do know is it wasn’t in Deutschland.
I have a confession. Housekeeping is not my forte. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes worse–there’s a reason I could imagine Grant’s surprise by Hope’s “cleaning” technique in A Boy & his Dog–but I tell myself it’s clean where it counts. That means bathrooms, the kitchen, the fridge are all good, and I vacuum up the dog hair and grit tracked in from the damp Pacific Northwest outdoors. I dust, including under the refrigerator and oven once a week. I give myself a solid C. Maybe even a B minus.
Yet when I came to Germany, there was no way I was ever going to be able to measure up.
That grate above, with the spotty paint? It wound have been scrubbed to bare metal. Cigarette butts and leaves? They would have been fished out and disposed of. The first week we lived in Obermohr, I was astonished to see the lady of the house across the street on her hands and knees with a bucket. She was scrubbing the street grate. It still boggles my mind!
Heaven knows what a bunch of slovenly heathens the Germans thought we were. In three years, I never scrubbed the street grate–not once! I suppose there’s a chance they had to brace themselves to come to dinner at my house, at the sight of toys strewn from the toybox, and a laundry basket visible over by the washing machine. But they loved my children, and were friendly and gracious to us despite our obvious shortfall in tidiness, and I’ll always remember my time there fondly.
Desire in Deutschland releases tomorrow! You can get the links to both the audiobook and ebook in the book section of my website.
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