Carl and Gerlinde (XVIII)
Whenever Carl saw the mountains of dirty dishes in the kitchen with all those disgusting remains of food on them, he felt doubly and threefold how much he was missing his much-loved Gerlinde. Without her, he was heading towards chaos after no more than two weeks – in fact, he was heading towards apocalypse!
Why ever had she done this to him?
Warum tat sie ihm das nur an?After all, he was sure she knew how much he loved her and how helpless he was without her?
How was he ever supposed to manage without her?
Yes – how to survive – without her care and heavenly cooking?
And without her ever-busy “cleaning hands“? Above all, without her wonderful, soft, ironed shirts? She alone in all his life had ever been capable of making the collars snug against his neck without causing a blood stasis in his head and a nervous rush on his neck and breast.
And who was now going to buy – with a sure eye – underwear that fit and did not climb up between his butt cheeks? And the right kinds of socks that would not become fold mountains inside his hand-made shoes?
Who was now going to buy the lotion for his face? And his special shampoo and his deodorant that was not itchy? He did not even know where all these things were on display in the shelves of the supermarkets …
Not to mention the neighbours! Had Gerlinde just totally blanked them out?
She could not possibly not have been aware of how this bold gang of seven would laugh their heads off on hearing that Gerlinde had left from one day to the next. This ‚Solar – Fuzzy’ Konrad, now didn’t he literally burst with gloating! And his significant other, Luise, who, naturally, would never up and be gone, even more so! He just hoped that lady would never be hypocritical enough to offer him her help. Now that would really make him go over the top…
Regardless – he was not going to be able to keep this gang of news-craving neighbours at a safe distance, that much was pretty obvious!
After all, even half a week into her disappearance, he had had the most serious problems postponing Gerlinde’s pedicure appointments. Even there, he had to use all the ingenious arm-twisting he was capable of in order not to arouse any suspicion. Not to mention additional cost!
Well, as it were, the pedicure was at least something where he could change her appointments to his own without much trouble. After all, his feet would certainly benefit hugely from a treatment that included the removal of all that scab and ingrown townails he had grown over the years! But the cosmetician was a totally different thing!
After all, how should he have his eyebrows plucked and his body hair removed without becoming a total laughing stock? Some other solution had to be found!
Perhaps something like a cruise! One of those cruises Gerlinde had so often been enthusiastic about, but where he had always pretended not to hear. Wasn’t it possible that Gerlinde had, at long last, convinced one of her girl-friends to go on one of those South Pacific Cruises that he never wanted to do, because he neither wanted to lie around on a luxury cruiser, nor on Samoa! But at least a cruise would be the perfect opportunity to make three or four weeks not seem all that long: weeks during which you would not constantly be confronted with stupid questions.
And it was also the perfect solution for the office! Mrs Wolf, his angel, would certainly cooperate; after all, this was all about the reputation of her much-loved boss who, after his wife Inge had left him, now also had lost his girl-friend! Well, it certainly was not something to boast about and there was, of course, going to be a time when the entire company would know it, but did it have to be tomorrow?
What was his mistake, Carl kept asking himself, that all the time the women in his life left him?
Well, he was not a bad type, or was he?
And neither was it embarrassing for him to look at himself in the mirror?
He was charming. Not a bad lover. At least that is what all varieties of ladies had confirmed dozens of times, both in bed and out of it!
Hannelore, too, had signalled that she found him absolutely fantastic. And there had certainly been a few times when she had been quite close to him – but let us not mention it: a true gentleman enjoys without telling!
At the moment, not telling was the one prudent thing to do, anyway. Because there was certainly nothing to enjoy about his run-down house these days! Unless he was going to find a good cleaning lady soon, all that would be left for him to do was blow his house up. Nothing else would be worth the effort …
Hannelore had been quite insistent on showing him quite quickly how to work the new dishwasher Gerlinde had been so happy about when it was first installed. She had said on more than one occasion that dishwashing was now pure delight.
But in the end, she, too, had not stayed to help!
Perhaps he should not have postponed the ‚project dishwasher’ for two years. After all, Gerlinde had even mumbled something about two dishwashers you needed in order to never have any dirty dishes sitting around and never being forced to take them out of the dishwasher immediately. Well, it would probably have been important to her!
But now the realization came a little late, didn’t it!
Mind you, at the time the dishwasher was delivered, they had really had a wonderful evening – incidentally, as he now saw in retrospect, it was the last of its kind…
At the time, Gerlinde had cooked a fantastic ‚sour liver’, because she knew how much he liked it and he, too, had not wanted to look miserly and bought the most expensive bottle of ‚Brunello’. It had been a really nice and cozy candle-light dinner – after the Uta Daniella film which – to his total surprise – had made Gerlinde truly eager! That is to say, she acted with as much enthusiasm as during the first few weeks of their acquaintance. And if he had not been so careless and had not again been indulging too much, because he wanted by all means to drown his frustration about Dr. Osterkorn, he would not all of a sudden have completely deflated and gone to sleep on the carpet in front of the TV. After Gerlinde – laughing all the time – had pulled him down before throwing off her clothes like a striptease dancer …
Well, but Gerlinde telling him on the next day that he had an alcohol problem was certainly more than a joke! And he had been truly angry with her. However, this did not last too long, since he – in his generosity – had forgiven Gerlinde everything, even the strange carpet number, which had really been bottom drawer! But so what. These kinds of things happened, didn’t they? But if you had his huge heart, it was not difficult to forgive!
Alas – but still she just moved out and left him, Carl, helplessly to struggle against a dirty house.…
Mind you, since the day she left, he had not touched a single drop of alcohol and shown massive restraint with schnapps, beer and wine! But since he did not know where to find her, he could not even proudly tell her how he was ‚outgrowing himself’! Not on the telephone, not via SMS, not as drift bottle …
Apropos drift bottle – didn’t you need an empty bottle for that?
One of the light ones, nice and see-through, just like the one the ‚Pinot Grigio’ he bought yesterday came in?
So what was he waiting for?
KH
(Translated by EG)
PS:
Two weeks from now, on Thursday, February, 9th, 2012, you will read “This Is How It Happened – A Case Study ”
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