Socks



my German Nuts



I really don't think at 5 am. I'm maybe awake, but alert & enthusiastic I'm not. But as I pulled on a pair of purple socks in anticipation of workout class with a girlfriend (don't gasp, I do have at least one friend) I am reminded of those socks journey to my feet that morning.

"What, they don't have purple socks in American?" Wolfgang asks me. (The name should give away the country I'm in.)
"No. They don't sell purple socks in America," I tell Wolfgang (do you know where I am yet) jokingly.

Strange, odd purchase to remind me of my vacation in Germany. I assume I am the first person to buy new socks on vacation and not wear them; solely for the purpose to take home and wear and not just because I simply don't want to do laundry in the hotel sink. 

And now as I pull them on my feet at 5 am, my mind wonders back to the Metro Store where I purchased them, the lighting, the scent and the nuts. Oh yes, I bought nuts as well. I bought the orange bag of nuts as the impulse item (along with the socks you might say.) I put several bags of nuts that have have been breaded and rolled in spices and cheese and baked into the shopping basket. The only thing that would make those nuts taste any better if they had been wrapped in bacon! Impulsively I buy those nuts because I just had them a week before in Turkey (or something very similar.)

It was early in the morning. My husband and I had just walked among the ruins of the ancient city Aphrodite. We made our way to the little shop for coffee. It was early morning. I order a cup of Turkish coffee which the vendor did not agree with me on. Turkish coffee is an afternoon drink, it's tea time and he pours me a cup of tea.  This does not make me very happy since I am not a tea drink. To me, drinking tea is like drinking Coors Light in a can; it's just wrong.  But I comply and drink my tea. As my husband and I sit there listening the vendor and his friends talk and play backgammon, I pull out a bag of nuts that I purchased from a street vendor the night before. The nuts where  big and thick; it was a breaded nut bake in spices and all sorts of wonderful things. I am not a big fan of nuts, but this nut I could eat almost every day for the rest of my life and be quite content. As I joyfully eat my bag of orange nuts, the tea/coffee vendor and his two friends stop playing and looks at me and gasp. I look around. Are they looking at me?? The vendor tells me I can not eat those nuts. "Okay" I tell him and start to get up to walk outside. "No, no, you cannot eat those nuts here."
"I understand. I am going outside to eat them," I tell the man with a fake smile on my face.
"No, you don't understand" he tells me. "Those nuts are beer nuts, you can only eat them with beer."
Call me a crazy American. First I want to actually drink coffee in the morning and not tea, and now I want to eat beer nuts without the beer.
"Pour me a beer" I tell the man.
"No," I cannot he says to me. "It is not after 5 pm."

So as I buy my purple ankle socks at Metro with Wolfgang, I chuckle at the memory of the orange nuts. I must have them.

And It's precisely that memory that will carry me forward as I end my last few days of work.  Er, maybe I should say regular paid employment, union memberships & benefits. And what little sock seed memories I can plant in others?  In the meanwhile, I'll complete by 5 am workout and head off work and dream of destinations unknown.

In the meanwhile, what would Jimmy Buffet do; "Is it 5' o'clock somewhere?"

Pour me a beer. Prost.