who needs a wall?

File under Brazil moment, #254: Traveled across the city to the Zollamt in Schöneberg (really, ACROSS the city. Potsdam might have been closer) to pick up a package from Mom (warm clothes. Because we need them, and we're too cheap to buy decent long johns.) But instead of being sent directly to our nest in Pankow, it found its way to the lowest rung of hell at the Zollamt (because really, who wears long johns?)

The Zollamt is the customs office. Perfumed with industrial cleanser, fatigue and paper cuts, the Zollamt is a lifeless building perched on the edge of the freeway (to make jumping easier.) Weary people hold up every wall, slump on every well-worn bench, fill every gray seat in the bland (yet clean) waiting room (that has a sink.) Employees move with such molasses speed one wonders if gravity has an increased effect on the body the longer one works for the government.

I'm constantly amazed at the silent patience of people in such situations. Granted, it is a lesson in survival: one does not taunt the government official. One doesn't wave arms or hop up and down to get government official's attention, even when waiting in an unmarked line for more than 45 minutes. One simply stands, emotionless yet alert, in (and this is what gets me) complete silence. I'm used to line jokers. Someone (at least in the States, or perhaps just S.F.) makes a crack; someone giggles; a conversation starts. There's solidarity in the line. Us against them. Not so here: Berliners seem to take line members as just another impediment to the goal (returning beer bottles for change, getting bread on a Saturday morning, waiting at the Post office.)

Which is why one German guy probably thought I was hitting on him hard, since he approached the line with a wry smile and proceeded to make a joke (sehr un-Deutsch.) I giggled. He stared at me the rest of the time (an hour and a half!) we were there. Oops. Tut mir leid.

Soviet-style, we waited in line at a counter with no one behind it. And again, in true DDR fashion, we waited in the spic-and-span waiting room for another half hour until our name was called. Children ran in circles and ran into walls. Partners took turns taking cell-phone camera pictures of each other. The clock ticked. Finally, we got the package, paid a tax (not terrible; what's more, the official was a very nice person) and stumbled out into the fading sunshine of an early afternoon.