This Way To Ausfahrt

One of the great ironies of my life is that I can't stand my little boys' potty humor but I'm okay with my own. No, I'm more than okay with it. It's hilarious.

In 2001, my friend and I flew to Germany and rented a Renault Twingo and drove to Slovenia. (If you need another reason why you should drive a stick, consider this one, that's almost all they have in Europe and if you want a cheap rental car then it's a necessity.) Not long after leaving the airport and getting on the highway, we saw a sign to Ausfahrt. Ha ha ha. The city's name is flatulent. That's funny.

A mile or so down the road and we saw another Ausfahrt sign and got another good chuckle. And I imagined how fun it would be telling people I lived in a town named Ausfahrt. Several miles passed and so did several more Ausfahrt signs. I started imagining a town that was laid out like a wagon wheel with spokes moving out from the center. That's why we saw so many signs. We were just traveling on the outside of the loop. 

One flaw in our thinking about Ausfahrt was that neither one of us had ever heard of it. And the number of signs we saw indicated it was a large city that must be well known. As in, it's the largest city in Germany. Hmmm...as we passed another couple signs we realized what it really meant. Ausfahrt is not the name of a town, but rather the word "exit" in German. Brilliant!