Do it like Hermann and say no to functional clothing

When Hermann is happy, his cheeks take on an afterglow hue. As if a little sun has set directly behind Hermann’s face and is now casting its last light on his wrinkled, mottled skin, which already resembles an alpine landscape.

It seems that over the years he has become more like what he loves. Just as the owners are like their dogs, Hermann has turned into a kind of mountain massif with all kinds of cracks. At least in the face. His legs, on the other hand, are more rickety than ever, the hair that once grew lush on them could disguise it to some extent, but now, those bare, slightly shiny lines in the landscape…

Good.

There’s still plenty of power in it. Enough to climb several mountains with it. There, on the high peaks, Hermann is happy. Maybe because then he’s a little closer to heaven, where he believes his dead wife. Because the walking started right when Berti left. And it quickly became very energetic. At times he almost looked like a religiously zealous pilgrim as he trudged up the stony mountain paths in the fervent hope that the Virgin Mary would appear to him at the holy site. Or the not-so-virgin Berti.

But that was all before The Hills Kings. Since Hermann joined the walking group, he has not been the same as before. He has become much more relaxed, especially in his running style.

But the original drive has remained, The Hills Kings couldn’t quite get the longing for Berti out of him, not even Renate with her gap between teeth, which Hermann loves so much, this crevasse surrounded by sparkling fresh snow, which he always has to meet to think when she smiles at him.

Unfortunately, Hermann’s outfit also remained the same, becoming a little more functional with each hike and reminding us all of his old obsession with climbing.

Today we go to the Säntis!

With the Schwebebähnli of the Schwägalp. And at the top a panaché is drunk. If René comes along, maybe two.

Hermann stands on the platform and adjusts his sophisticated Forest Night Sky trekking trousers with detachable trouser legs (zip off!). Underneath, well hidden, he wears his close-fitting Natural Benefit Performance underpants, which ensure a pleasant body climate through the use of seamlessly integrated ventilation zones. Despite all this, it seems a little too hot for him and he opens the neon-colored contrast zipper of his water-repellent Revolution Race softshell hybrid windbreaker, which is waiting to be used in a zipper garage.

The train stops, Hermann’s old eyes searching for his friends’ heads, trying to decipher the carriage numbers that pass him too quickly, excitedly waiting for the note “Reserved for The Hills Kings”.

Over there! Car 17! René waves and Rolf calls out the open window: “Hermann, that’s me!” And Hermann steps on the gas. Sector B to Sector D – that dummy driver has gone way too far! – it’s still a long way. And Hermann doesn’t like to walk through the compartments of the train. You can be sure he’ll drive off just as you want to gracefully pass the reading beauty, but instead stumble ugly on the lewd pages of her romance novel.

So Hermann runs up the platform to the 17th car. Past the shrinking crowd at the doors, past the conductor who, seeing this extremely active pensioner in his Wildfire 2 approach shoes made of recycled polyamide and Kevlar cord lace, feels the irresistible urge to blow his whistle immediately.

But Hermann doesn’t see him, Hermann suddenly seems to float over the platform and anyway far away from any Swiss punctuality stress because of the pure zero weight, the excellent heel hold (3F system) and a richly cushioning midsole.

Finally he reached the right door. He closes himself in front of him, he presses the stop button a few too many times, while René is just as desperate inside. “Here it opens again, phew, thank God!” thinks Hermann with relief and René claps his hands enthusiastically and does not hear the crackling sound that Hermann’s right foot makes when he climbs onto the footboard. The immediately following “Ahhhhhhh!” he should. And he also sees the whole Hermann falling backwards from the train.

The door closes again, the light of the green stop button goes out, the conductor whistles and the train starts rolling the next moment. As she passes by, his holy trinity of happiness, his Säntis walk, his Panaché and Renate’s crevasse.

And there on the platform he remains, bruised Hermann, holding his foot and holding back the tears that brought shame and anger to his eyes.

He looks around. Fortunately, no one is on the platform anymore and trains run ahead of the others so that no one can see him in his wretched condition.

He takes off his approach shoe and throws it onto the platform. “Let the train come at him until he’s all shredded!” thinks Hermann and immediately sends both middle fingers after him. “Fuck you and your heel hold.”

Then he stumbles home on his quintuple-folding Black Diamond trekking poles.

And if you take care of him now, somewhere between Hermann’s head and his strain hangs a greenish bundle. And this green is so exceptionally ugly that it does not even occur in nature.

In short, the name “green” should be completely forbidden for this annoying color. This disgusting thing, diluted with a hard-to-digest shade of brown, reminiscent of something immature and inedible, doesn’t seem to exist at all beyond Hermann’s padded contact back, in every color palette on earth, nay, even Pantone, the industry leader in color communications, has it doesn’t and doesn’t have it, nobody wants this poison with about 1/3 of the vomit in it on their wall.

So it seems to have been invented especially for this hiking backpack.

Thank you Deuter.

Thank you for the 300,000 zippers, the 722 pockets and the 95 million ribbons. For an entire generation’s belief in the misleading formula “many features and many subjects = very good”. For the compression straps and the elastic straps on the front for attaching various tools that Hermann and all the other people who carry your backpacks will never have with them in the past, present or in the future because they are not extreme athletes, not alpinists and are not survival campers and instead muddle their mini shots in, which then all get wrinkled and rancid as they get warmed up by the sun.

Hermann also notices this when he pulls out his own and bites it listlessly.

How much can a person tolerate?

Herman not so much. He undresses, even the close-fitting Natural Benefit Performance underpants, from which he not only gets optimal ventilation, but also at least partially returns to the former tight buttocks – hadn’t Renate secretly looked at it several times since wearing them? – promised, he tears himself free from his body.

Naked and trembling with anger, he goes out into the garden with all his functional clothing under his arm. Hermann has never done such a march in his life. An iron determination seems to stiffen his whole body, the thin legs and also the feet, so that he forgets even to limp for a moment.

This old man is now triumphing over his pain. But when he becomes aware of this miracle, he is so startled that his performance underpants fall to the floor. But to anyone who now thinks that Hermann would have spared her again, I must say that she too did not survive his grudge. Meanwhile, Hermann has seen through the scope of the self-deception in its entirety, admitting to himself that instead of a tight ass, he only has a tight foot.

lying underpants!

And there he sits with his worn tires throwing the underpants of lies where they belong. To the shameful heap of empty promises and even more empty multi-purpose boxes. Then he dumps gasoline on this mountain of false hope and sets it on fire.

The licking flames return the afterglow hue to his face as the entire outfit melts into a single, stringy clump of polyamide.

Hermann laughs and sees the smoke rise into the air. And it seems as if it has suddenly taken the form of a thumbs up, blurry but clearly recognisable, at least to Hermann.

Berti.

She appreciates his furious act.