Yakety Yak

For some odd reason, Germany is obsessed with rubbish. I kid you not. You may remember a previous post, where I shared some of the rules regarding how to dispose of various kinds of rubbish. Up until now, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. Except, I wasn't.

I had some of my furniture delivered today. Upside: I had the same two delivery guys who brought my washing machine and refrigerator (all deliveries seemed to be outsourced to a company called Hermes), and they were very nice. Downside #1: every single piece of furniture came in ginormous boxes. I kid you not on the size of these boxes.  Downside #2: I live alone, and so guess who had to unpack all these ginormous boxes? Downside #3: While the furniture was mostly assembled, guess who still had to put tables together, which involved lifting heavy as hell iron and wood (because I just had to go authentic) and following instructions which had pictograms for 2-3 people assembling this shizzle?

If you said me, then winner winner, chicken dinner. I had the pleasure of unboxing and assembling a dining room table, 4 chairs, a coffee table, a console table, a side table, and a hanging rack (for coats). And while I didn't need to assemble my kleiderschrank (wardrobe), it came entombed in two huge boxes that I had to figure out how to remove without tipping the damn thing over on top of myself or destroying the paint and/or floors. BIG FUN. I am now the proud owner of countless scrapes, scratches, cuts and bruises. I look a little like I spent the day in a mosh pit - or inside a Walmart on Black Friday. And while every single minute sucked, I can proudly say that I handled it all - and all by myself. Oh, I cursed a great deal and at one point found myself singing songs from Cinderella (yes, the old animated version - and no, I have no idea why); and I'm pretty sure that my next move after this post (and dinner) is to post a Craigslist ad for a German man-friend because I sure as hell do not want to do this again when the rest of the furniture comes. Oh, yeah, that's right. Didn't I mention there's more? I am so not looking forward to the desk. Or the bookshelf. Or the other wardrobe (had to get two - no closets, and these things seem to be built for Barbie and/or Laura Ingalls Wilder and her three homespun dresses.

And while I'm pretty sure any neighbors with a good view into my flat had a great time watching me fight with boxes twice my size and exploding styrofoam, that's not even the best part. The best part was when I tried to get rid of the damn stuff. Knowing Germany's weirdness with regard to abfall (rubbish), I asked a couple colleagues what I should do. Their answers were "take it down to the Alt-Papier bin and put it in". To explain, this is basically a regular sized wheelie bin that says "Alt-Papier" on it, and is supposed to contain... paper. I tried to explain that my boxes weren't going into that bin. My boxes were twice the size of that bin. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could fit the bin - and a couple of friends - inside just one of my boxes. Their answer? Just put it outside by the bins and hope for the best.

Survey says: WRONG.

Off I go, carrying down boxes in groups of 2 (these fools are heavy and awkward and I live on the third floor). Carry boxes down, take boxes out to bins, leave boxes against wall. I'm on trip 2 or 3 when I hear a commotion outside. I've also been bringing down bags which contain either paper (for some reason every piece of everything was wrapped in brown paper) or plastic (because every piece of everything was ALSO wrapped in bubble wrap) or styrofoam (because... I think you get the picture). I tried to sort these out correctly - putting the bag of paper in the paper bin, and the plastic in the yellow plastic bin and the styrofoam in the restmull bin (everything else bin).

Again, surveys says a big old X.

There stood my landlady and a young guy I had never seen before. He was wearing gardening gloves and gesticulating wildly while explaining something in German. Lots and lots of German. He saw me, and his eyes widened and he started pointing. My landlady turned around, saw me with more boxes and bags and started laughing like crazy. "Oh no no no" she said, still giggling. And then proceeded to drop some knowledge on me regarding rubbish in Germany.

It seems that you only take out what can fit in the bin.
Anything else? You call the rubbish guys and make an appointment, which can be anytime from tomorrow to 4 weeks away. In the meantime, boxes and such go in the "kellar" (cellar). The man who I thought was a nosy neighbor happened to be the son of the Hausmeister - not exactly a janitor, and not really a housekeeper, more someone who does odd jobs around and keeps the place clean. On second thought, it's like a super but one who cares. He was the one who dropped the dime on me because I was messing up his garbage system.

Both the guy and my landlady seemed absolutely astonished by the number of boxes I had. I kept trying to explain that this is how the furniture came, but I still think they may harbor secret suspicions of me operating a cut-rate box factory. I didn't have the heart to tell them about the eleventy-million boxes still sitting in my spare room.

I was so embarrassed. What made it worse was that I apparently had all the bins wrong, too. Paper in the bin can't be in a plastic bag. Cardboard that is shiny can't go in the paper bin. Plastic can go in the bin, but only if the labels are off the plastic. And so on and so forth. I feel like there should have been a class and a test before I was allowed to get my residency permit.

So finally I got all my rubbish down into my area of the cellar (I have a small room with a padlock) and tomorrow I have to call these peeps - http://www.fes-frankfurt.de/ - and arrange an appointment for them to roll up and take all my stuff. Upside: they come and get it. Downside: I have to take it down to the cellar and then back up again which is a whole bunch of ain't nobody got time for that. I think I prefer England, where you just put everything in your car and take it to the Rubbish Tip. Or better yet, America - where you just throw that shit out in front of your house and random people come and take it, even if it is complete and total junk.

Maybe in the meantime I can build a clubhouse.

Not my actual boxes. These are what my boxes tiny little box babies would look like. If boxes could have babies.

I'm so glad I had the foresight to buy my landlady a bottle of very nice wine to thank her for all her (continued) help. For her part, she seems to find me quite amusing and seems to actually enjoy my various mishaps.

And now, finally, some dinner and then bed - where I hope I don't dream of boxes.