In Search of Mr. Laden
Because my apartment is on the fourth floor, whenever a package is heavy the Amazon delivery guy slacks off and just leaves it wherever’s convenient for him — some other flat, or the coffee shop downstairs, or the barber’s.
Super annoying. I’d ordered an air fryer. I was sitting around waiting to cook — and the wretched delivery guy had handed it off to some other fellow and left.
My building has thirty flats in total. No elevator. The only clue on the Amazon order was the name of the guy he’d left it with: Friseur Laden. The only way to figure out where this Laden fellow lives is to go door to door from the ground floor up, checking the name on each one — and where there’s no name, press the bell and stand there waiting. Plenty of people don’t open the door; when someone does, I put on my best I-don’t-speak-German act and ask whether anyone named Laden lives there.
After searching twenty-nine flats and still no parcel, I plopped down on the stairs, fuming. There goes the damn weekend — until, finally, a woman came over and asked, in English, what was wrong.
I told her I was looking for Friseur Laden and couldn’t find him.
She started laughing. She said: in German, Friseur means barber, and Laden means shop.
He’d left the delivery at the barber shop.
Follow me to learn German.