Yesterday German of the Month #3 walked up to me and asked if we had a pencil sharpener (she had to mime to word, fortunately I happen to know the German word). "Sure," I said, "we have one behind the printer. I'll show you." So I walked her to the electric sharpener and turned to go back to my desk.
"Oh! It's electric!" I heard her exclaim. Then I heard the sound of a pencil in a sharper and heard her shout and recoil in terror.
I turned back around. "It's okay," I said. "Have you ever used an electric sharpener before? Here, you just stick the pencil in..." She stuck the pencil back in for about one and half seconds then pulled it out.
"Okay!" she said. I looked at the pencil. It was still dull and barely capable of writing.
"Just a little more..." I coaxed her, moving to take the pencil from her hand and do it my damn self.
"No, no! This is good. I don't like it!" I had to laugh. I guess they don't use electric pencil sharpeners in Germany.
1 comment:
you'd think that germans would appreciate nifty mechanical pencil sharpeners. it seems to fit well into their engineering culture...
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