Tuesday, March 18, 2014

What does that mean?

I have a phobia about terms of endearment

     My grandmother was old country German.  This was my father's mother. She used to wear black dresses, dark stockings and a head scarf we called a babooshka, or something like that.
     She owned the apartment building we lived in, a building her husband built in the 1920s, if memory serves me correctly.  (Sometimes it doesn't.)
       We lived in the front apartment on the third floor of the north side of the building, she and Aunt Betty lived in the back,  There were 12 apartments in all, six on each side.  There was a beautiful rock garden in the front that gramps built.  At one time it had running water.  In the summer it was always filled with flowers and I often wish I could build one like it.
     But Grandma Dickow had her, shall we say, quirks.
     She had several pet names for me.  Instead of darling, she would say in her broken English, "My little scheisskopf."  When I was being impish, I was her "little hosenscheisser."  And once in a while I was a hosenscheisse.
      I loved those terms of endearment.
      She died.  I think I was about 13....maybe younger.  And at some point of my adult life I mentioned those terms of endearment to a person who spoke German.  The conversation went something like this:
      Oh, you speak German.  My grandmother was German.  She spoke it a lot.
      Do you remember any of it.
      Oh yes! (said with a big, innocent, smile.)  I'm a scheisskopf!
     Pardon me?
      I said 'I'm a scheisskopf'!
     I heard you. You do know that means shithead in English.
      What! ( with genuine disbelief.  Dear sweet granny said that about me?)
     Scheisskoph means shithead.  You didn't know that?
      No, honestly.  She always said it with affection.
      What else did she call you?
      I was her little hosenscheisser.
      Do you know what that means?
      I'm afraid to ask.
      It means someone who shits their pants.  Your granny had a thing about shit and you, you know.
      So hosenscheisser is like hosenscheisse?
      You mean pants full of shit?

     So there you are.  Hosenscheisser, hosenscheisse, scheisskopf......that's me!
     Despite that, and her terrible temper and lack of patience, she was a fairly nice person.
     Certainly scheisskopf material, for sure!
   

 

     

   

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