Wednesday 30 May 2012

On Being Careful What You Wish For

I think there is an old joke that goes along the lines of this post but the facts recounted here really did happen to me.

This morning I set off running North from Dr. Koenig's flat (my home for 2 more days). It's not one of my regular routes but I've been that way before. It gets rural surprisingly quickly. You start running past small vegetable farms as soon as you pass by the main take-off and approach path of Nuremberg Airport.

As it was before 6am and farm workers are "early to bed, early to rise" types I ran past a crew just getting ready to start their shift. I was sort of curious to see what they were about to do but as my training partners know, I don't slow my pace for (almost) anything. Fortunately I was on an out and back so I saw them on my return. It should have been obvious from the field, they were harvesting white asparagus.
The earth heaps should have been a giveaway

For the benefit of those who haven't visited Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands in springtime I'll just say that asparagus is "A Big Deal" here. I won't say it's my absolute favourite but it is very good, it's a local specialty and they do a really good job of preparing it. I've only had it a couple of times since I got here and it will be gone soon (remember McRibs?) so I thought to myself "it would be great if we had asparagus on the cafeteria menu today". Fast forward to 12:30. Yes! Steamed white asparagus (in way more butter than I would use) with a couple of slices of nice smoked pork. All for less than 6 Euro.


Once the enjoyment had faded away it occurred to me I was now facing one of those logal/ethical/philosophical situations that Psych undergraduates so enjoy dealing with. Like the one about the young woman who meets a guy at her mother's funeral (If you know a psych student ask her).

The way I see it tomorrow I have two options:
1) Alter my running route to take me past one or (preferably) several armored cars picking up or delivering large sums of cash or
2) Run past the exact same asparagus field (maybe a few rows over) and wish for those same large sums of cash
Please leave a comment if you'd like to vote or if you have yet another option or if you'd care to send me large sums of cash.

Thanks for reading,
Tom

4 comments:

  1. I think its about wishing for asparagus for lunch and getting it, so if he wished for large sums of cash that might work too. Tom will be home soon - maybe he needs a break at home to get back to reality! ;-)

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  2. Tom - How 'bout some more stories about cleaning the apartment? Those ones are easier to understand.

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  3. After nearly 30 years Kate still understands me best. How could it be otherwise? Unfortunately I wasted my wish on asparagus. When I saw the guys in the field I should have wished for a million dollars (Euros?). The joke is so old it goes back to the time when that was considered a great deal of money.
    Ryan, if it makes you happy I gave my apartment one last cleaning. I'm moving to my new one this afternoon.

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