08/24/2025   English German
  Edition # 159  
San Francisco, 08-24-2025

Top Product: Bring Your Own Hook
Figure [1]: Finally, a hook in the Airbnb to hang the kitchen towel.

Michael Anyone who, like us, frequently stays overnight in foreign cities and books rental properties through Airbnb or Vrbo might know that while many of these apartments are in top condition and prime locations, they all suffer from the same issues.

I'm talking about the fact that in these vacation homes there are never enough coffee tables to put glasses and other things, and that there's nowhere to hang a towel or a piece of clothing.

The latter problem is the systematic shortage of hooks. I don't know what your kitchen looks like, but in ours, hooks are drilled into the wall where kitchen towels hang. In the bathroom, hooks are drilled into the wall where bath towels hang. In vacation rentals rented out by amateurs, these things are missing for reasons unknown to me.

Figure [2]: A set of four hooks for a small price on Amazon.

For this reason, I bought a set of four portable hooks on Amazon that can be hung over doors or other vertically positioned shapes. These hooks curve upward on the front side, inviting you to hang a piece of clothing or a towel. The set travels with us, and quickly turns any uncomfortable rental apartment into a comfy home.

Figure [3]: Missing hooks in the bathroom were quickly replaced to dry towels.

Why do I now call the useful little helpers "Butzenhaken"? Well, when you have lived abroad for too long without linguistic feedback, like we have, you start to develop the German language uncontrollably, and eventually, a jumble like Texas German emerges, the dialect used by emigrated Germans in Texas. In my personal dialect, I refer to rented places, usually through Airbnb or other platforms, as 'Butze', following another exiled German named Roland. And "Haken" means "Hook", so Butzenhaken! Top product!

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