I know Germans have a reputation as blunt and direct, but this was above and beyond:
I was at the post office today, and as the middle-aged woman behind the counter got the various stamps I needed, she commented out of nowhere, "Dann brauche ich meine graue Haare gar nicht verstecken." ["Then I don't really need to hide my gray hair at all."]
"...Sorry?" I asked, not sure if she was comparing herself to me, or someone behind me, or what. I do have rather a lot of gray for a "young" person, but I don't think of it as being that extreme. That, you know, strangers would comment on it.
But she repeated herself and added, "Darf ich fragen, wie alt Sie sind?" ["May I ask how old you are?"]
"Twenty-eight," I said.
"Das ist ganz schön früh," she agreed, ["That really is pretty early"] then went on to tell me about the coloring rinse she'd done just that morning to hide her gray.
Always alert for an encourage-people's-self-image moment, I assured her I didn't find gray hair so bad at all.
Personally I just love "Darf ich" (pronounced with tones dripping with courtesy) as an intro to ask or do the most intrusive things. But all we have to do is channel our New Yawrk upbringings and then everything's alright: "NEIN, Sie dürfen NICHT"... Anyway, at your age all my friends were older and I was just dying to look older. Lucky you to have a built-in maturity option.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's just like the classic American "No offense, but..." [person then says something clearly offensive] isn't it?
ReplyDeleteLuckily, I was not offended, and instead quite amused :)