@cupcake said in Um...What?:
@aria said in Um...What?:
@coin said in Um...What?:
My brother didn't realize he was fucking a Nazi until he saw the Swastika tatoo on her boob.
I accidentally had dinner at a Nazi's house once.
And I don't mean, like.... a neo-Nazi. I mean a Nazi Nazi. Like, served on the wrong side of WWII Nazi. By choice. It was super awkward when I found out.
Story time!
Okay, soooooooooo. About ten years or so ago, I was dating this guy from Sweden named Bjorn. (Because of course his fucking name was Bjorn. What else would it be?) And while I was there visiting his family for a few months, we end up getting roped into going to his grandparents' house for dinner -- something which he proceeds to be a sulky asshole about for days, before being effectively forced to go by his dad.
We get to the family farm and his dad's enormous collection of relatives is there. Now, bear in mind that at this point in trying to learn the language, I can string all of about three sentences together, most of which revolve around buying beer. And while I can sort of understand what people are saying to me without someone translating, it's only if it's in a set context (like I'm trying to check out at the grocery) or if it's a topic I already follow pretty well (like gaming). Even then, I have to answer them in English because again, three sentences.
Lucky for me, almost all of Bjorn's family spoke English to some degree -- even his grandmother. Our conversations were fairly limited (where do I live? what do I do? what do my parents do? what am I studying?), but we were capable of having them. Except for his grandfather. His grandfather spoke literally no English. And his grandfather is also not a bartender, so my limited Swedish is completely and utterly useless. The whole night, half of the conversation is in Swedish for his sake and half is in English for my sake, and the two of us spend it all feeling awkward and out of place and like we're inconveniencing everyone else....
Until we have this beautiful, beautiful moment that crosses language and cultural barriers. Sitting there feeling awkward and lost, we both peek at each other. And realizing the other feels the exact same way, we simultaneously crack up laughing and absolutely cannot stop -- which everyone else around us thinks is crazy, because the only two people in the room who can't talk to each other now have some kind of inside joke. Honestly, it was very sweet. It made me happy and gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies.
By the end of the night, it seems that grandpa had decided he really liked me, because he stopped us before we left the house. Apparently, he wanted to show me the family rifle -- which are legal in Sweden, but very, very rare. I guess he thought Americans all love guns, so maybe he could be nice to his grandson's American girlfriend by showing her his hunting rifle? I don't know. It was definitely weird but also funny and kind of cute because he was very obviously trying to bond with me, even if it was in the most uncomfortable way possible. I decide I like him, too.
So we get home and Bjorn and I are changing clothes and getting ready for bed, when I say I had a really nice time. I thought his grandparents were so nice to me even though it obviously wasn't easy for them, and that his grandpa was actually very sweet. Almost all of my grandparents had passed away or were very ill and I missed them. Why was he such a shit about going to visit them for just one night?
And that's when he drops this bombshell.
"Ohh. Didn't anyone tell you? My grandfather was a Nazi."
...........
....................
........................................
"You mean like a Nazi-Nazi?," I spit out </high-pitched voice crack>.
Because, I dunno, I guess there's some other kind? Diet Nazi? Nazi Zero? I don't really know here, but I'm having a hard time processing this information. I just ate dinner at a Nazi's house. He was nice to me. We almost hugged. I almost hugged an actual Nazi, you guys.
"Yes. He joined the Swedish Nazi party, and volunteered to go fight in Germany. My whole family hates him, but my dad makes us go see them once a year, anyway."
At this point, I start freaking out -- not just because I just had dinner at Nazi's house, but because Bjorn is being so calm and non-chalant about this. Like this is just a thing some people's grandfathers did, which of course I realize is the case, but I guess it just hadn't occurred to me that it might be a possibility in a country that was neither Germany nor an occupied territory at the time. "Grandpa was a Nazi" is not on my radar of potential social situations I might find myself in.
He, meanwhile, does not seem to understand why I am so shaken by this and I have to explain to him that in the States, not only was pretty much everyone's grandfather was on the other side of the war? Sixty years later, we will still ship your swastika-sporting ass back to Germany* for possible trial if it comes out you were a Nazi, no matter how old and shriveled you might be.
And that, kids, is the true story of "How Aria Accidentally Made Friends with Her Ex-Boyfriend's Sweet, Gun-Toting Nazi Granddad."
Good times!
(*Unless, y'know, you want to work on our space program and then we'll give you a visa and eleventy billion dollars or something. But that's a whole different story. You can Google that shit yourselves.)
