Disclaimer: the characters and opinions in this post are only fictional. Any similarities to real people or opinions are entirely by accident.

I may or may not have heard the following conversation at work:

Two customers met in front of the bakery department in the supermarket I work in.

A rather tall man in his forties with short cropped blond hair. He had an accent which I could not properly place. I was thinking something Eastern European. The woman, however, was clearly German, tall too but not as tall as the man. Her dark blond hair was plaited and both hugged like they haven’t seen each other in ages.

The only reason I became aware of them was that she was talking rather loudly and her voice did grate a little on me. I hate broad German accents.

“Ah, Oleg, they haven’t sent you away yet?” She giggled and he answered laughing: “ No, dear Susi, apparently those letters were sent by accident!”
“Yea, right, the Foreign Office is trying it on, don’t you think? If they’d sent one to me I would have directly complained to the German embassy and would have written to any newspaper available. Their behaviour is a disgrace!”

“Don’t be so harsh. Mistakes happen. They are just human too!”
“You really think so? Once Britain is out of the European Union they can do what they want. Why do you think they don’t want the European court of justice to be responsible for us?”
“I don’t know! They want their power back maybe?”

“Oh please, don’t start with that! I know your country is into all that patriotic crap too but when will you see that it’s not immigrants or the European Union who cause the problems but international companies which don’t pay their taxes and greedy people in power who only want money? They are sitting in their golden towers rubbing their hands in glee as all of us small people rip each other’s throats out. As long as we concentrate on foreigners we are not getting to know the real culprits! Wake up man!”

“Oh come on, give me a break. Powerful people ain’t that bad! It’s not that easy to lead an international company and they have charities. They also do some good!”
“Ja, to safe taxes it certainly isn’t out of humanity! If they would pay their taxes most of the problems their charities supposedly try to solve would not exist! We live in pure capitalist times. Marx and Engels would have a heydey and you most of all should see through this! You learned it all from such a young age!”

“Da! Communism isn’t heaven. You haven’t lived in it!” “No I haven’t but that’s the same process: the powerful kept you glaring at the capitalist West and again fight the foreigners while the greedy top did their money making deals and deprived you even more of a fair life than the governments do now!”
“And you wonder why I am fairly OK with what is going on?”
“ Well, seeing it from that perspective…..”

I could not hear the rest as they were there walking away now.