Plagued

In my home the crappy stuff seems to happen on holidays.

Once when it was Pfingsten (Pentecost to you non-German speaking folks...Pentecost is a two day holiday here) B was horribly ill with pneumonia and a fairly high fever. Luckily our doctor adores B and she made a housecall on Pfingsten Sunday afternoon when she had a house full of guests waiting on her.

There is the Good Friday broken window.

Today for Easter my disaster was named Wolfgang. For newer readers, Wolfgang is a buddy of B's. He broke up with his wife a couple years ago and we went from seeing him four or five times a year to four or five times a week because he decided to move into our apartment building on the floor above ours. Leaving him behind when we moved to our new apartment caused me to shed no tears. He's not really a bad guy but he tends to annoy me no end. He believes that if I'm unfamiliar with a word in German, repeating the word to me at a shout will give me instant understanding. He'll tell me to speak German if I say two words to B in English which has caused me to say to him on more than once occasion "Fella, when you start paying the rent around here you can tell me what language to speak. Don't tell me what to do in my home.". He has BO on occasion - something I can barely tolerate. He likes to tease me. He creeped out my friend Mollie within five minutes of meeting him. He drops in without warning. He calls our apartment and says to B...you know, the homebound quadriplegic..."Hey, are you home?". And when he kisses me hello or goodbye his lips are just a leeeetle too open for my comfort.

So when Wolfgang called Saturday afternoon and invited himself over for coffee and cake on Easter Sunday afternoon, I didn't take it well. As a matter of fact as it turns out the snapping and disagreeable talk between B and I on Friday turned out to be mere warm-up to what I let loose with when B hung up the phone.

There was a time when I would sit in silence when we had guests in our home because I couldn't understand what anyone was saying. Today I sat in relative silence because if I'd bothered to listen to Wolfgang's blatherings my brain would have dripped out of my head and onto my lap. It turns out that the good stuff was saved for when I took the dog out for a walk and I left B and Wolfgang alone. That's when then manly man talk cranked up. That's when Wolfgang told B that he took some new woman that he met a few weeks ago to a Pink Floyd tribute laser show that lasted for three hours and then they went back to his apartment where they listened to Pink Floyd CDs for another three hours before retiring to his bedroom for...and B swears he used these words..."sexual gymnastics". I was told all this when Wolfgang went home.

I don't know what repulses me more. A grown man saying "sexual gymnastics" or the idea of people listening to Pink Floyd for six straight hours without the benefit of any doobie, Cap'n Crunch or Doritos.