Germany Blog: Episode VI

 The past week has been an eventful. There was snow, a hike, a synchronized dance, a large bar tab (pastry tab, if mom is reading), and a trip to Cologne. However I'm going to focus on something else in this post: an event that can only be described as the ISE. ISE very obviously stands for Improbable Stift Eruption. I was sitting at my desk doing homework like the non-procrastinating individual that I am (it was approximately 11:30pm and the assignment was due the next day) and I had no idea that my life was about to change drastically. I was thinking over a problem while very very slightly bending my pen in the same way you would bend a pencil to break it. I really didn't think I was being very forceful with it but I was also lost in thought at the time. All of a sudden, there was a snap and my pen was suddenly in multiple pieces (the part that holds the ink seemed intact but very bent), and keep in mind that this happened suddenly. I looked down at the ground to see if there were any stray drops, and my eye caught a small trail of droplets so I followed it with my eyes. I'd like to pause here and bring something up. Remember the scene in the cinematic masterpiece Daddy Day Care where a young boy exits the bathroom and announces that he missed, and Eddie Murphy goes in and all you see is his face evolving through intensifying levels of horror as he looks from the ground up? Anyway, back to the story. The ink had splattered from my chair onto the ground and all over the wall about 7 feet away. I said some naughty words and then hastily tried to clean it up with paper towels and a glass of water. It came off the floor easily but I only succeeded in spreading it over the walls. I eventually gave up and decided to try and buy something the next day to clean it. I was so nervous that I felt as though I had murdered somebody and buried them under the floor. Nobody could know. To justify my need for ink removal supplies I used the alibi of accidentally breaking my pen and getting a tiny drop on my jeans. I found a bottle of ink stain remover and according to Google it works. Google lied. After about 45 minutes of battling the ink and zero success, I decided to tell my host mother (Nico). I was deathly afraid that I would be put out on the streets and removed from the program and burned alive at the stake for my crimes against humanity. However she simply laughed, pulled out a big bucket of paint and a brush and told me to just put it away when I'm done. This is the same as if the eagles in Lord of the Rings just flew Frodo straight to Mt Doom for him to drop the ring in. I was expecting an epic quest to the store, trying to find matching paint, taking a whole day to repaint the wall, and instead, it's already done. It has truly been an emotional roller coaster here in Bonn.