i bought a cuckoo clock today.

while this was -most likely- my first and last ever cuckoo clock purchase (i can't imagine ever having an interior design in a place where i live that could incorporate a classic cuckoo clock), it sure was fun.
caught a train to titisee, the nearby tourist spot, which is the only city i know that has a shopping district, lined *only* with cuckoo clock & souvenir shops. next to heidelberg, roteburg ob der tauber and the hofbräuhaus, titisee is a must on every europe-in-7-days bustour, the kind that american senior citizens love to do in summer, on which everyone seems to sport a uniform of khaki shorts, t-shirts & caps honoring their homestates & sneakers - and name tags at all times.

so i entered the biggest and bestest and most renowned cuckoo clock store on titisee's cuckoo clock shop street (actually, the big store owns most of the small stores anyway, so it's fake fake fake, and all cuckoo clocks in town are created equal and cost the same), approached a salesman and announced my desire to purchase one, which sparked him to quick start his memorised cuckoo clock styles & technical differences speech (along the lines of this), which was so enthusiastic that i had to stop him, tell him i already knew what kind of style i wanted (plain old traditional nutwood cuckoo clock with traditional "cuckoo parents & little cuckoo" carvings on the front, with a "cuckoo off" switch - you don't want the cuckoo to cuckoo althrough the night right?). the exact same guy had delived the exact same speech to me back in january, when on a little trip with evan, santa and john. he.
the only decision which i needed help regarded the clockwork automatic: a one week one -which means you just have to rewind it once a week- would sure have been nice, but was both not affordable (40€ more than a one day one), and would also have been way too heavy to carry home (those one week weights alone would have weighed in at 9 pounds), so i decided on a nice, plain, traditional one day automatic, made in germany. i hope it *is* as close to a traditional clock as i was assured it is.

when i handed over my debit card, allowing the shop to deduct 78€ from my stressed out account, a pang of worry struck me (will this really be something evan's family will like? after all, his mother always said that she wanted one!). it must have been quite obvious, as i got a reassuring chat from the salesman ("australians love these". now that wasn't a generalisation, was it?) with my well packed cuckoo clock, after a thorough instruction on how to set it up once i've handluggaged it to australia (there's a variety of preventative measurements in place to prevent the clock from cuckooing when being transported, and lots of styrofoam, too). should anything ever go wrong, within two years, there'll be free repairs at a clock shop in hawthorn, melbourne, victoria. shocking.
that cuckoo clock shop has affiliate clock repairs all over the globe, literally, including at least one in every us state. that's true customers service, eh?

i proudly carried my cuckoo clock through the cuckoo clock & souvenir shop street. noticed people -old americans in the aforementioned uniform- ogling my not exactly camouflage yellow bag saying "uhren brunner titisee" in huge bold arial in the hands of me, the almost hip young lady. on the train, i sat the clock on its own seat, and held tight to it, althrough the ride, worried about it sliding odd the seat,

and now there's a cuckoo clock, still disassembled, in a dreamless sleep awaiting being brought to life in a living room 16.409 km away, in its little cardboard and styrofoam box, sitting in my room, the box still in the super sturdy yellow plastic bag .

this is so kitschy a present (even in this very traditional, harmless form), i would have never shelled out that much money (and pardon me, this was one of the cheapest clocks around. i saw a us couple spend 300€ on one today) for a present so very german, had i not been assured that this will actually be some sort of a wish come true for evan's mom. if that *is* the case, she should like this. it is as pretty as a cuckoo clock can be, i think. it's even "tasteful"!

i am so worried about this. i so hope she and the rest of the family will like it.

otherwise, at every cuckoo intervall, every 30 minutes, they'll be annoyed. and be reminded of the horrible person who brought that torturous clock into their house. me.
oy.

wouldn't make for a good start to my possible role as daughter in law, would it?