When the Paper Dragon Meets the Potato Peeler and Ralf Shouts “Rapsi! Rapsi!”

Sometimes the boring things in life are not so boring when you give them a little game.

The Mayor told me about this yellow car game. When you drive a long distance and you see a yellow car, you must say, “Yellow car!” Even when you are in the middle of a sentence with your wife, even when the conversation is serious, the yellow car wins. You must say it. He also told me about counting Norberts, these trucks from a logistics company in France, where he and his wife wrote them down on paper in the car and at the end of the year they had points. Five hundred points, five hundred and twenty points, maybe next year more. I like this. It is a little bit crazy, but good crazy.

My wife and I have our own game. Since our first date in 2006, we look for rapeseed fields. When we drive and one of us sees this yellow field, then we say, “Raps! Raps!” or “Rapsi! Rapsi!” We do not write it down, but we see it. It is only for a short time in the year, but when it comes, it is like sunshine in the body. The yellow colour is so strong. Yellow and orange are my colours in life. They make me happy.

I always say, when I have too much money one day, I buy a Porsche 911 in yellow. And when it is not yellow, then I paint it yellow. This is clear. I once saw an Audi TT in yellow, but it was specially painted. Not normal yellow from the factory. I looked at it and thought, yes, this is a car with sun inside.

The Mayor once told me about seeing an old Model T Ford at a garden centre, over one hundred years old, and it was black. Of course black, because Henry Ford said you can have any colour you want as long as it is black. But then the owner explained why. In that time, the black paint was the only paint that dried fast enough at the end of the assembly line. This I like. A car story is never only a car story. There is always some technical reason behind it. Paint, temperature, time, production. These little facts make the world interesting.

Driving long distances can be boring, yes, but it is not only boring. When I drive through Germany, especially in the east, sometimes I become thoughtful. I see villages where the houses look very old, like from 1920, and water goes inside the roof or the windows. I ask myself, why is nothing done here? Why is nobody renovating? Maybe the ownership is difficult. Maybe nobody knows who has to decide. The streets are often cobblestones, and it is not so funny to drive. After so many years, you still see places where life looks like it stopped. Then you drive further and you think about many things.

But then, of course, I see yellow. A field, a car, something shining. Then the mood changes again.

The Mayor suggested that maybe I should shout “rocket” when I see a barbecue trailer, or “sardine” when I see a small car, because I have a big car. I like these ideas, but yellow car is still nice because yellow is my colour. Maybe I do this more. Maybe I make a new road game for myself. Life needs these small stupid games. They are not really stupid. They are medicine against grey days.

Paperwork is another story.

When I see forms, signatures, lists, documents, Excel sheets, then inside me something says: no. Not today. I become angry, yes. I think, one day we must make the end of all this. I am not an administrator. I am not built for sitting the whole day with tables and forms. I am built to go outside, talk to people, visit people, understand what is happening in real life. But now there are more and more documents. More sheets. More information for this person, then for that person, then again for someone else.

Sometimes you make a list, with names, phone numbers, email addresses, addresses, all clean and correct. You send it away. Two months later, the same question comes back again. Then I think, why? Why did I make it? It is a waste of time. You ask people for information, you put everything into an Excel sheet, and then nothing comes back. Or it comes back with the same question again. Then I say, this is a pity. A pity for the time. A pity for the work.

For this kind of paperwork, I have a name: Schwachsinn feiert Schützenfest.

It means, stupidity is having a big festival. It is a very good name, I think. Because sometimes paperwork becomes so much that nobody knows anymore why we do it. It is only control, control, control. People want information because maybe one day somebody else needs it. But by the time anybody needs it, the information is already old. Then we make new lists again. And the paper dragon laughs.

The Mayor asked me if we can make a game from this. After every form, one coffee point. After every annoying email, one biscuit point. But I cannot drink so much coffee, and I do not eat so many biscuits because then I become fatter. But barbecue and a cold drink, yes. This is a good reward. After a big session of paperwork, I can go outside, make barbecue, drink a cool beer, and say: finished.

When my wife is there, the best reward is simple. I tell her, “I survived the program.” Then maybe I read a barbecue magazine. Yes, we have barbecue magazines in Germany. Or I go to the computer and look at barbecue equipment online. Ten minutes, maybe more. Nice grills, tools, machines, accessories. I look and dream a little. Then I drink coffee with my wife and tell her I love her. And then I say, “It is weekend now. We can stop paperwork.”

This is the real reward. Not only the beer. Not only the barbecue. The feeling that the stupid paper is away and life can come back into the room.

Cooking also has boring jobs. Not everything in the kitchen is romantic. Everybody likes the finished food, the smell from the grill, the nice plate, the meat, the sauce. But before that there is peeling potatoes, chopping onions, washing salad, preparing bowls, cleaning the grill, cleaning the kitchen.

My least favourite is peeling potatoes.

I do not like it. You hold the potato in your hand, and there is still sand on it. You use the potato peeler, and the skin goes away, and everything is wet and dirty. When you make potato salad, the potatoes are hot and broken and the skin must come off. I know potatoes are important. Germany is a potato culture, yes. But peeling them? No, thank you.

Chopping onions is different. I can do that. I have many barbecues and also many knives. A good knife is important. My friend Andreas has a Tormek sharpening machine, a very fantastic machine. You can set the angle, fifteen degrees or twenty degrees. Fifteen degrees is very sharp, but maybe it does not stay sharp so long. But when you have a good knife, you feel it. The blade goes through the onion, and the onion knows: okay, Ralf is here.

When I cut onions, I cut the onion in half. I leave the root on. Then with my Santoku knife, I cut from the side, not through the root, and then zack, zack, zack from the front. Small cubes. Very good. If I am lazy, I use this kitchen tool where you put the onion on a square grid and push down from above. Zack. Cubes. It is like these Genius things, but better, not rubbish. Still, for me, chopping onions with a proper knife is the right way.

When my wife cooks, she often uses these small knives, very small kitchen knives, and I always think, how can you work with that? This is a knife for a hedgehog. I need a proper knife. But wives do this. They have their own system.

When I do boring jobs in the kitchen, I put on music. In our kitchen we have a Makita battery radio with DAB+. Sometimes I listen to AIDA Radio, from the cruise ships. They have interviews about destinations in the world, harbours, Mallorca, places with sun and sea. Then even potato peeling becomes a little bit better. You hear about Mallorca, and the sand from the potato is not so bad.

The Mayor suggested games like Potato Grand Prix, Grill Cleaning Olympics, Onion Survival Challenge. I like the Grill Cleaning Olympics. I have a grill cleaner called FUSL. It is biological, with bad alcohol, and you put it in a can, pump air into it, and it makes foam. Like a carpet cleaner, but for barbecues. Then I have a small battery pressure cleaner. It is not high pressure like the big machines, but for small things it is very good. Not for the terrace, too slow, but for the car or the grill it works. You can put the hose into water and go. Fantastic. This is the kind of machine I like. Practical, clever, useful.

For onions, my survival trick is simple. I breathe through the mouth. Then I cry less. Maybe this is also a game: how many onions can Ralf cut before the tears come? But I must say, if the knife is sharp, everything is better. A sharp knife is respect. For the onion, for the cook, for the food.

Then there is the other kind of waiting. My wife does triathlon, and when she goes to these meetings, I go with her. I am not the man who waits and does nothing. I am the man for all cases. I drive to the destination. I make pictures and videos of her swimming, cycling, and running. I put air in the tyres. I help clear the place where the bicycle stands. I watch, I support, I carry things. This is my job there.

Of course, sometimes I think, why swim, bike, and run when you can simply barbecue? But this is my humour. I am proud of her. She does this sport, and I am there. That is normal for me.

The Mayor had this funny idea that I could become the unofficial Brida Community chef at the finish line. The athletes finish, and I say, “Now you have done sport, now you need a sausage.” I can see it. Maybe I have an old Citroën from France, one of these corrugated metal cars from the 1950s, and I stand there and say, “Come to me, eat nice meat from good quality.” But for athletes, maybe we must think different. They need carbohydrates, protein, recovery. So maybe we make a special burger, not a normal burger. Maybe with beans, much protein, good for sport people.

Still dangerous and delicious. That is my style. Recovery by Barbecue. Ralf’s Recovery by Barbecue. Dangerous and Delicious Food.

This could work.

When I think about daily life — driving, paperwork, cooking, waiting, cleaning, travelling — I see that there is always a place for a little play. Not childish play, but human play. A way to make something heavy a little lighter. When I drive a long distance, I think about what I can do with my barbecue machine next time friends come to us. That is one of my games. I plan food in my head.

For example, next time friends come to us, I think: what can I make on the barbecue? One friend is a strong woman. She does not like fine food so much. She knows what she wants. Schnitzel with croquettes and hollandaise. That is clear. Some people want Mediterranean, some want special, some want delicate. She wants Schnitzel, Kroketten, Hollandaise. I respect that.

It reminds me of a party years ago. We were away with friends, and we thought there would be a big nice evening meal, maybe something special, because people paid good money. First came finger food, okay. Then another station. And then: schnitzel. Big pot of hollandaise. Big pot of mushrooms. I thought, oh my goodness. But this is also life. You expect fine dining and you get schnitzel with sauce. And maybe everybody is happy anyway.

That is the funny thing. We make plans, and life puts hollandaise on top.

Maybe this is why I like these little games. Yellow cars. Raps fields. Barbecue rewards. Grill cleaning Olympics. Onion survival. Paper dragons. Because not every day is sunshine by itself. Sometimes you must put the sunshine inside the day. You must shout “Raps! Raps!” when the yellow field comes. You must laugh when the paperwork becomes too stupid. You must clean the grill with foam and a small pressure machine and call it sport. You must sit with your wife, drink coffee, and say, “I survived.”

For me, this is creative play in daily life. It is not big theatre. It is not a performance. It is the little moment when boring work becomes a Ralf moment.

And when the sun is shining, or when something yellow appears beside the road, then I know: life is still good.