Welch Whirl

Lesson #2 Think Compact






I’m sure you’ve all seen this oversized roller-skate from movies, but we actually see them all the time here. They’re called Smart Cars. It’s so small that you can actually park it on the sidewalk in Germany. Admittedly, parking on the sidewalk is normal round these parts, but usually you can only put two wheels on the sidewalk. A Smart gets to put all four wheels on – which puts it in the same category as a bicycle (that is, if bicycles had four wheels – so maybe a bicycle with a side car).

Ben told me that once a Smart Car was waiting at an intersection and it got nudged from behind by a semi truck. The semi driver didn’t see the Smart Car, and somehow the Smart Car got lodged in its grill. According to the story, the semi driver drove about twenty kilometers until another driver flagged him down and alerted him to the large, metallic bug stuck to the front of it. I don’t know if it’s true, but I want it to be true because after seeing one, I totally believe it’s possible.

Incidentally, everything else here is compact, too. Our fridge is the size of a dishwasher. Our dishwasher is the size of a microwave. Our microwave is the size of a toaster. And our toaster is the size of a cigarette lighter. Our freezer is so small that I can’t find it anywhere -- literally. We’ve been in the apartment two weeks and I still haven’t spotted it. It’s probably vacationing somewhere with our oven, because we haven’t seen it either. People try to live simply, rather than filling their lives with stuff. A great lesson.