When Sabine was pregnant with Cy and we would tell German friends that we were expecting a boy, they would turn to me with a bit of a sad face. "Boys are easier," they would say, "until they're grown up."

Then there would be a pause. And they'd say:

"Then they have to kill off their father. Figuratively, of course."

At first I just shook my head and forgot about but it got to be so common that I threw the concept into google. Uncle Google told me it's a Freud thing (I never had Psych 101). It's all related to Oedipus and the idea that fathers are standing in the way of their sons.

I've never put much stock in Freud, so I just filed it away somewhere in my brain. Then I started reading things about child development (I wish I could say books but, to be honest, I never made it that far) and every one of them -- English or German -- referred to an Oedipal phase with little boys where they realize they are different from their mothers and go through a sort of emotional separation.

I didn't put much stock in that either until last week.

Suddenly I am the most important person in Cy's world. It happened over night. He fights with Sabine constantly (but, to be honest, he's always been a bit of a contrarian) and always wants my attention. It's improving his English because he wants to communicate with me on our own level. It happened from one moment to the next.

Since I'm a bit of a self-conscious parent, it's nice to have a little reassurance from the midget squad. But I'm also glad to be there for him. The whole thing coincides with a long-planned boys' weekend in Worpswede (where else?) with just me and him. Martha and Sabine are visiting Kathrin in Hamburg.

These Freud things pop up semi-regularly in my tenure here, but this is the only time I might -- sort of -- believe him. After the honeymoon Cy and I have been having over the past week, it would kill me if he did indeed have to kill me.

It's been more than a week, but Cy is four.

For whatever reason, it was the birthday party (of which we have no pictures) that I enjoyed the most. Organic sausage and beer.

Don't let the kids play with the alarm clock.

The nursery teacher will wonder why you're there so early.

Germans love discussion. Laws take forever. Controversies drag on for weeks. Talk shows are dull and press conferences are always marathons of rhetorical oneupmanship. This isn't surprising given Germany's intellectual legacy and faith in academia but you wouldn't expect it to trickle down to everyday life -- unless you're a politician, professor or code enforcement officer.

But it does.

I was vaguely aware of this in my early days in Germany. I more than once stormed away from a government office with the feeling that I just hadn't pressed the issue enough but I could never figure out just how to press an angle -- where did I apply pressure, and how?

Then Sabine and I moved in together.

One afternoon we traipsed off to the Mitte town hall to register our new address with the authorities. Sabine was still on the dole and I finished up work early so we could go after lunch. The office was open until 3 p.m. We figured we'd have to wait an hour or so -- but no big deal.

Once we arrived at the town hall -- a successful renovation of an East German apartment block that's now airy with a touch of Cold War Communism -- we couldn't figure out where to go, so we went into the room marked, "Information."

"Is this where we register our address?" Sabine asked.

"No."

In the past, this is when I would have stormed out, livid that someone who is paid to help me doesn't even understand a leading question. But another part of German culture I've come to understand is that you're responsible for standing up for yourself and asking the right questions. But still I was annoyed at this woman.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sabine said. "Could you possibly tell me where we need to go."

What? I thought. Why is my girlfriend sucking up to this woman? She's sitting above a sign that says, "INFORMATION". Of course she will tell us where we need to go.

The woman looked over the counter at a full waiting room across the hall. "I need to give you a number and then you go upstairs to [some room] but there's no point now. There's no way you'll get in today. You might as well go home."

I was warming up a tirade that included mentioning how much tax I paid last year, how little she obviously respected me as her source of income and whether I could speak to her supervisor when Sabine raised a calm right hand. To the rest of the world it looked like her saying, "Let me say something first honey" but she and I both knew it was her plugging up my leaky reservoir of rage.

"Would it be possible to just get a number and then we'll go wait for awhile? If we don't get it, that's fine we'd just like to give it a go. We both took the afternoon off from work for this."

"Nah," the woman said. "I don't see why. There's no point. You'll never get in."

I was about to tell Sabine I would be outside when she was finished talking to this knuckle-dragging mouth breather but I found myself entranced by the discussion. There was a rhythm to it and it was clear Sabine was the conductor.

"It would just be a big help because we both took the day off of work. We don't mind waiting awhile. If we don't get in, we don't get in."

"Do you have all the paperwork?"

Oh wow, I thought. She's countering with an offensive move -- if we don't have all the paperwork, then we're obviously idiots and don't deserve a number anyway. This woman was a gambler -- if we did have the paperwork she'd have to relent. I was beginning to like her.

"Yes," Sabine said producing our sheath of stuff. The woman took it and began typing stuff into the computer. She looked at Sabine's ID card and my passport. She typed some more stuff in the computer and then printed something out. She grabbed a stamp off her desk and placed a Berlin seal on the piece of paper and then handed everything back to Sabine.

"There," she said. "I just did it. Sending you up there wouldn't do anyone any good. Have a nice day."

Only recently did I discover that cultural differences matter because of what people expect of me. Those times I stormed away from government offices, the workers were probably as baffled as me. I still get miffed when someone wants to enter a negotiation with me about something I'm entitled to but it's the way the game works -- it just took me awhile to learn the rules.