Me and Angela Merkel

When I learned that Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, and me, Downtrodden Middle-Aged Family Man, were close enough in age to have dated in high school, I practically had a cow.* How could it be possible? I can understand that the President of the US is younger, looks younger, probably feels younger (hard to say - I've never touched him) because the US is a young country. The people may be old, or more accurately the bulk of the population may be getting old, but the country relatively speaking is just a baby. Actually I can understand why many countries, regardless of their age, would have leaders younger than me. Given my diminished mental capacity, shrinking vocabulary, lack of the most basic arithmetical skills including the completely forgotten multiplication tables, begrudging acceptance of virtualization along with the fact that personal computers did not exist when I went to college (for you younger folks that would mean smart phones, iPods, GPS, video games - well just about everything we now rely on to manage our existence), and declining physical condition, the details of which we need not delve into at the moment...it makes perfect sense that electorates the world over are choosing younger candidates. Except in Germany.

But to imagine that had I been a German, or more specifically a West German, I could have at some point in my younger days had relations with Angela Merkel - that is a sobering, depressing thought.

As I cogitate on the possibilities there is a creeping anxiety that perhaps, just perhaps, I did have relations with Angela Merkel.

Jesus could it have been her?

The bossy, sweaty little porker that was always telling the rest of us what to do in that all-too-familiar "Sound of Music" German accent?

It was 1978 and I was "studying abroad", pretending to teach English to little brown bunnies in Jalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz, nestled in the mountains between that coastal city and the megalopolis of Mexico (which is how Mexicans refer to the city: not Mexico City, just Mexico.) About 3 weeks before I was to return to Boulder for graduation, I decided to see the sights. I headed straight for the island of Isla Mujeres off the coast of the Yucatan, where it was said college kids, mostly girls, from around the world gathered to snorkel, drink, dance and have relations. (Had I known a gangly American kid with a blonde Jewfro didn't stand a chance next to the French, Italian, British, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Australian, West German and all the other fellas not behind the "Iron Curtain", I would have just toured the Mayan Ruins and gone home.) But there was one night, Cinco de Mayo festival it must have been because the party lasted all night long, night after night, for about a week, when a pudgy little German with a cute little Page Boy hairdo got so drunk that all I had to do was figure out how to roll her into my sleeping bag. Of course she  had yet to take on the appearance of a seasoned yet perennially tired head of state. No. She was in fact rather perky, even when she was barfing all over her German touring sandals (if she had only taken those black socks off!). And smart as a whip, when I could make out what she was saying, which was hard enough not speaking German and damn near impossible when the German became unintelligible. But I can recall that even on all fours I could tell she had a future in politics, just by the way she grunted and squealed. Or course I can't remember her name but Angela would have been just as good as any.

Oh lord tell me it couldn't have been her. Tell me we couldn't possibly be the same age, that I am far more youthful, vital, and refreshing than the Chancellor of Germany. Tell me before I go to sleep tonight, if I can go to sleep tonight, that the Euro Debt Crisis is not my wife's problem to solve (man that would put her is such a baaaad mood). Even if it's inevitable that Angela and I are almost the same age - just one measly year apart (she is older - yay!), tell me lord that it wasn't her in the fleabag Mexican hotel with cucaraches the size of a Luftwaffe bomber.

If the good lord can't grant me a reprieve then I ask you, gentle reader, to at least understand my reaction to the very thought of being the same age as Angela Merkel. Seriously. Who wouldn't have a cow?

*Is "having a cow" considered cliche? Maybe it was in the sixties, but I would venture to say that very few people are still having cows, though it may feel like it to them. Of course the idea of a human giving birth to a cow is outrageous, which is perhaps why the phrase still has such appeal to cultural hicks like myself. When my children get upset, even now in their 20s, I love to tell them "well don't have a cow about it!", which invariably shuts them up. For obvious reasons.