No Good Deed...

Upon fixing our washer/dryer, our landlord invited us over for coffee with him and his wife. After a few unsuccessful date proposals, we made our way over for a pleasant Saturday evening of wine, cookies and pretzel sticks. It was an enjoyable conversation, at least the 60% that I understood (all of the 50% in English and about 10% of the German). We discussed the adventures of their two children living abroad and future and current work; our plans for graduate school after Germany; translating what he went to school for and deciding that Heilpedagogie was like a combined study of social services specifically for people with disabilities and disabilities rights; the enjoyment they get from their terrier, even bringing her on the marathon trainings that Norbert runs; the use of the farmland near us; and other typical congenial conversational topics. We were especially pleased to find out that it was Norbert listening to the Maroon 5 that we overheard two days before Christmas and not their twenty-year-old daughter. Before we left into the continuously falling and piling snow, they even offered to bring the newspaper over after they were finished with it each day.

The following day we helped our “host” family, (who included us in their Christmas celebrations), by shoveling their driveway. They were in Berlin for the week and a lot of snow had collected in their absence. After Bryce’s shift ended in the afternoon, I met her there to heave the 8 inches off of their long, crooked driveway and parking space. She borrowed a neighbor’s shovel, while I presumed it was okay to bring our landlord’s; he had finished shoveling his drive and our walk, and had left the shovel out. On our way back from shoveling, we noticed that a piece of metal that straddled the end of the shovel had bent back. There was also snow and ice jammed between the blade and the metal strip on the reverse side. We weren’t sure if this had been the case before we borrowed the tool, or if we inflicted the damage. In order to try to repair the shovel, we needed the snow wedged in it to melt first. We brought it inside the entryway to thaw, and planned to do our best to repair it before warning the landlord of the damage.

Shortly after dinner, the doorbell rang. We had forgotten about the newspaper. I greeted a smiling Norbert at the door and thanked him for the paper. As I was closing the door he glanced down, and noticing the shovel lying on our floor, said “Ist das mein Scheiber?” I apologized and stumbled through some awkward explanation about having used it (although it was abundantly clear that the only shoveling around our area was completed by him) and that there had been snow stuck in it (which had since melted completely), throwing in other comments that he probably wasn’t paying attention to. He said he would take the shovel and that it was okay. He then went on his way, after I handed him the couple of broken pieces lying on our floor that had once fastened the metal to the blade. (Maybe I should have offered him my umbrella.) The newspaper has since been delivered each day as promised, and the only shovel to appear has been a newer one resting on the opposite side of the garage.