Lost In Translation - What’s a Dog Corpse Got To Do With It?

This week I have learnt quite a few new words, such as whiplash, funny bone, doppler ultrasound and radial head fracture.

Yes, staying at the Alfred hospital was a huge learning experience in many ways. Not only have I expanded my vocabulary, I have also learnt to appreciate bicycle helmets greatly, and I have learnt that codeine is particularly good to calm oneself when one is frothing at the mouth with rage at the complete and utter arsehole who mowed you down on his stupid bike.Never trust short, little men in bicycle tricots is the ultimate lesson I have learnt in this, worst week ever.

Another lesson: if you think that estate agents are little mean devils with small genitalia, who are out there to ruin your life, then you were absolutely correct. When we told our agent that we want to postpone our move because I had an accident, an elbow fracture, and nasty bruises and concussion because a tiny bastard with a yellow tricot mistook me for part of the cycle track and ran me over, he replied that he would have us evicted if we didn't move on the move out date. What a MASSIVE WANKER.

Anyway, back to the dog corpse ... After clearing up the misunderstanding regarding my father's imminent retardation with my host family (see Part 1, May Edition) I was enrolled in a lovely suburban high school. I had never seen such a glorious school before. Vineyards, computers, and boys in uniforms? I was in heaven.

I immediately fell in love with a particularly geeky ginger boy who was, back then, the King of Nerds and was also a house captain responsible for international students (he clearly took the responsibilities of this job in a, let’s say, ‘flexible’ way). I was too shy to talk to him in person, so we wrote a lot of emails instead. Our combined awkwardness prevented any romantic involvement. He stuck with a girlfriend, and I retaliated by starting to date the boy at school he hated the most (it was unpleasant – he wore silk batman underpants).

I cried on the way back home to Germany, listened to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, smoked my way through University, and continuously wondered why someone would exchange a part in a war for a meat roll in a cage.

Then all the wishing finally worked, and, after I flew back to Australia for a short visit, nerdboy and I became a lovely inter-cultural item.

I believe an incident with tequila led to our romantic liaison. Apparently, so I am told, I also drunkenly performed an interesting x-rated puppet show with two stuffed wombats to illustrate how we could take our friendship to the next level. How could he have said no?

More separation followed as I went back home and he started saving up to follow me into the Bavarian superland.

Finally, he arrived in Munich. Unfortunately, on the same day that my family’s 16 year old beloved dog Asti died.

The airport doors opened, my beloved came running towards me, his arms out.

“My dog died”, I sobbed and sputtered as a smelly and hungover nerdboy took his first uncertain steps on European linoleum.

Beautiful first words after all these years apart.

Meanwhile, my father was driving through the Munich winter, trying to dispose of the dog corpse in the boot. The ground was frozen so he couldn’t bury it. It was a Sunday – in deeply Catholic Bavaria, everything is shut on a Sunday, from petrol stations to animal crematoriums.

So I took my exotic boyfriend home to meet my parents, and as we arrived, my father was carefully placing the dog corpse onto the summer car tires which were neatly stacked up in the garage. My mum cried violently over the empty dog food tray as she welcomed the Australian into the household.

He was disturbed, to say the least.

Finally, I want to solve a mystery that has been keeping me awake for a while now. When Barack Obama recently announced on national TV that “it's time to turn our washing on” which I thought was a really odd campaign phrase (so your whites become more white???), he actually said, “it's time to turn around Washington”.

Glad I cleared that up for you.

Next month: What a beautiful veal!