Father. âDoes exercises out on his balcony every day â unless thereâs a hailstorm or a snowstorm. Havenât you really ever seen him before? We call him our head gymnast, donât we, Naef?â
*
âA single ticket to the terminus. There are times when they carry out one dead person a week. February, April, thatâs when they croak out here. A common flu, and already youâre lying over in the new wing in the boxroom next to the showers. Into the little wooden box and off with you. When itâs summertime, like now, things are better of course. No dying in the summer. Summerâs not the right time to go. Thatâs when all those old sticks come back to life, start toddling around the house again, babble nonsense on the benches below our window, blah blah blah, chittery chat.â
*
âToday I was just about to start shaving when I stepped on a piece of shit. There it was lying on the tiles. Unfortunately I hadnât seen it in time. Jäggi had been to the lav just before me. Jäggi often misses the bowl. He steps in his shit and messes it all over the floor. Sometimes there are streaks right out to the corridor. Perhaps he canât help it. But I have my doubts about that. He probably does it on purpose. As I said, this is a childrenâs home. There are people here who have to wear nappies like babies again.â
*
âOh yes, the food is excellent, as always. This week spinach seems to be on the books â alternating with chard. Thatâs to say it isnât actually spinach, itâs chard leaves. Chard stalks in white sauce â thatâs all right by me. But the leaves? In other places theyâre fed to the pigs, but here they dish them up as spinach. Let them dish up whatever they like! It doesnât make much difference whether the green pap is spinach or chard, I donât like it whatever it is. Particularly without fried eggs. Fried eggs and spinach, they belong together, at least thatâs what I always thought. But the people in the kitchen donât agree. Canât be done, says the office clerkâs wife, itâs impossible to do fried eggs for sixty people. She must know. So they serve processed cheese with our so-called spinach instead. And yet they have the best-equipped kitchen for miles around. Budmiger, at least, would have given his eye-teeth for a kitchen like that over in the Löwen. The best-equipped kitchen for miles around, thatâs what I say, bought with the blessing of the most far-sighted supervisory committee for miles around. Tut, tut, with a kitchen like that even I could manage to cook fried eggs for sixty people! But the office clerkâs wife counts her little frying pans and decides itâs impossible. And dishes up processed cheese instead. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Weâve not only heard of it, weâve eaten it. Guaranteed to be healthy. Steaming fresh cowpat-green pap, processed cheese, sickly white on the edge of the plate, plus crumbly boiled potatoes. Spinach is said to contain iron, and iron makes you strong, thatâs what they say, so itâs just the right thing for the rusty old scrapheaps that we are. On the other hand I donât know if thereâs iron in chard, and I donât want to know either. And then â probably to make up for the rest â once a week, usually on Sundays, thereâs the famous roast. Did I say roast? More like dried Grisons beef. Nice and dark all round the edges. They donât save on oven heat. You should see those old codgers chewing and chewing on their Sunday roast; they even praise the stuff, tough as it is. But behind the cookâs back they grumble about the grub. To her face not a word, in fact they even compliment her: quite delicious, really delicious. Itâs not surprising they think it good, after all that chard, and the chard leaves and the processed cheese. Bumsuckers, thatâs what they are! Itâs
*
âA single ticket to the terminus. There are times when they carry out one dead person a week. February, April, thatâs when they croak out here. A common flu, and already youâre lying over in the new wing in the boxroom next to the showers. Into the little wooden box and off with you. When itâs summertime, like now, things are better of course. No dying in the summer. Summerâs not the right time to go. Thatâs when all those old sticks come back to life, start toddling around the house again, babble nonsense on the benches below our window, blah blah blah, chittery chat.â
*
âToday I was just about to start shaving when I stepped on a piece of shit. There it was lying on the tiles. Unfortunately I hadnât seen it in time. Jäggi had been to the lav just before me. Jäggi often misses the bowl. He steps in his shit and messes it all over the floor. Sometimes there are streaks right out to the corridor. Perhaps he canât help it. But I have my doubts about that. He probably does it on purpose. As I said, this is a childrenâs home. There are people here who have to wear nappies like babies again.â
*
âOh yes, the food is excellent, as always. This week spinach seems to be on the books â alternating with chard. Thatâs to say it isnât actually spinach, itâs chard leaves. Chard stalks in white sauce â thatâs all right by me. But the leaves? In other places theyâre fed to the pigs, but here they dish them up as spinach. Let them dish up whatever they like! It doesnât make much difference whether the green pap is spinach or chard, I donât like it whatever it is. Particularly without fried eggs. Fried eggs and spinach, they belong together, at least thatâs what I always thought. But the people in the kitchen donât agree. Canât be done, says the office clerkâs wife, itâs impossible to do fried eggs for sixty people. She must know. So they serve processed cheese with our so-called spinach instead. And yet they have the best-equipped kitchen for miles around. Budmiger, at least, would have given his eye-teeth for a kitchen like that over in the Löwen. The best-equipped kitchen for miles around, thatâs what I say, bought with the blessing of the most far-sighted supervisory committee for miles around. Tut, tut, with a kitchen like that even I could manage to cook fried eggs for sixty people! But the office clerkâs wife counts her little frying pans and decides itâs impossible. And dishes up processed cheese instead. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Weâve not only heard of it, weâve eaten it. Guaranteed to be healthy. Steaming fresh cowpat-green pap, processed cheese, sickly white on the edge of the plate, plus crumbly boiled potatoes. Spinach is said to contain iron, and iron makes you strong, thatâs what they say, so itâs just the right thing for the rusty old scrapheaps that we are. On the other hand I donât know if thereâs iron in chard, and I donât want to know either. And then â probably to make up for the rest â once a week, usually on Sundays, thereâs the famous roast. Did I say roast? More like dried Grisons beef. Nice and dark all round the edges. They donât save on oven heat. You should see those old codgers chewing and chewing on their Sunday roast; they even praise the stuff, tough as it is. But behind the cookâs back they grumble about the grub. To her face not a word, in fact they even compliment her: quite delicious, really delicious. Itâs not surprising they think it good, after all that chard, and the chard leaves and the processed cheese. Bumsuckers, thatâs what they are! Itâs
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