thank you, germany.

today, while at starbucks with my friend, a group of german men sitting near us suddenly started causing a ruckus: pounding on the window, pointing at something outside, gesturing wildly. out of the corner of my eye i saw a man crossing the street and assumed he was their friend, and all this fuss was to get his attention (i also assumed he was from germany, and this was some odd, german method of greeting each other).

nope! turns out, the guy's prius was driving away without him. it started rolling towards the parkway, and almost out into traffic. he got back to it just in time to stop it. he drove off, never to be seen again.

is it terrible that i sort of wanted to see that car explode? i didn't want anyone to get hurt, but i wanted to see the prius run into a tree, or hit a parked car, or get hit (gently) itself. now that i think about it, one perfect, german word comes to mind to describe my feelings: schadenfreude. it was all delightfully terrible.

(whenever i see a prius, i think of one of my favorite lines from the simpsons: ed begley jr. saying that his go-cart is powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction.")