Post #6: Getting Yelled at by an Old German Man: A How-To

If you want an old German man to get upset and yell at you, two things need to be true. 1) You need to know very little German and 2) something about German society needs to confuse you. Once you have those things, that stern reprimand you always wanted is just a metro ticket machine away.

Overgeneralizations aside, this is the story of what happened to me, yesterday.

It’s 5pm and I’m leaving class. In an hour and twenty minutes, I’ll be meeting Roxana at the train station so that we can take the metro to the Isar River and drink beer and eat pretzels (you know, as we Germans are wont to do).

Right next to the school I attend is an automated kiosk that sells metro tickets. I’m after the kind that lets you ride the metro an unlimited number of times around most of Munich for one week.

I tap a few on-screen icons in a way which I think roughly translates to “I would like one week-long pass to ride the metro around Munich, please” in automated machinese. However, what I really couldn’t stop saying was “I would like a week-long pass to travel to other cities in Germany by the train, please.” My school doesn’t offer a class in this language, so I’m stumped.

I decide to call Roxana to see if she’s purchased something similar in the past. She hasn’t but she wants to help, anyway. So, I start reading screens and narrating my progress to her.

Roxana: You want a pass that lets you travel among 2 or 3 rings inside Munich.

Ryan: When I tap “season pass–weekly,” it wants me to input a destination, like a city or something.

Roxana: Well, that’s-

Now, behind me, I hear some loud German words in a male voice. Distracted by them, I turn to investigate. A grumpy man-face greets me, and I can tell the words are directed at (or are at least about) me. I’m a little confused, but I assume he’s trying to give me instructions. Something like “press that button, dummy.” But he’s not. I apologetically ask “Englisch?” and he responds with “Get off the phone if you’re going to use the machine! I need to use it!”

It’s clear he doesn’t perceive the relationship between my phone call and the adventure I’m on with the machine. I shrug at him and start to say “I am on the phone asking for-” and he says “Go!”

Now, my temper is a little short, but I’m in a country that’s not my own. So, I hit “cancel,” step back, usher him forward, tell him “Go,” and walk away.

So, that’s it. Just a story about an angry guy for your entertainment. I’m trying to learn something from the experience, but I’m not sure I can avoid the same event in the future. If I need to accomplish something, and I don’t know how to do it, yet, then I think I have to hope that whomever is nearby will teach me how to do it. Or someone will have to yell at me and I’ll have to learn some kind of guilt trip technique.

The universe heard my wish later, though, when I met Roxana and we both tried to figure out how to use the machine in the train station. We spent about two seconds in confusion when the guy next to us offered to help. Now, I know how to use that machine. So it ended well. Viele dank, train station guy!