"He Fixes the Cable?"

"The Big Lebowski" served as a default movie of choice for the first two years I studied at Davidson. It came alongside "Half Baked" as the most quoted movie among many of my friends and still litters my vernacular with those peeps. This post is for you Lebowski lovers.

I'm not gifted linguistically. Never have been and I'm unlikely to develop that ability at this point in my life. Given that I travel, my strategy is to use language not necessarily for conversation (because I'm hopeless) but as a way of building relationship. Typically, I try to learn a handful of phrases (preferably good slang or ones that are otherwise surprising to hear a visitor use) and toss them into life at the appropriate times. This strategy has mixed results, but it generally builds some positive lines of communication and a sense of endearment, so I continue to use it.

Of course, when I arrived in Germany, I searched for such words and phrases, but the only word that kept coming up for me was quote from the big Lebowski:

Karl Hungus: "Meine dispatcher says there is something wrong with eine cable."

So I walked into Germany with my one word in place. Eine cable. Completely useless, right? Too true, for a day I walked around Germany and I held closely to my “guten tags” and “auf wiedersehens”.

Surely, I thought to myself, there is no way I’m going to be in a situation where this word even comes remotely close to the conversation. But on the second day, I just happened to be in an internet café. The scene unfolded like this:

C: “Guten tag. Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

Woman: Of course.

C: Great. Can I connect to the internet.

Woman: Yes, but the WiFi is down. You’ll need to connect manually.

C: That’s no problem.

Woman: Yes, but you will need to connect with (she starts looking around the bar for something) with…hmmm…how do you say it? You know, “eine cable”?

C: (Verge of hysterical laughter) Of course, eine cable. I’ll connect with eine cable. I see eine cable just over there and I'll plug in. Danke!

Yes, it’s true. It happened. I used eine cable in Germany. Ahh, sometimes life is just wonderful.