Grief Bacon

My word of the week: Kummerspeck. That’s pronounced “koo-muh-shpeck”. It’s German – it refers to the extra weight you gain from emotional eating. For real, friends. The literal translation is “grief-bacon”.

Grief-bacon.

Y’all. Tell me you’ve heard a more hilarious word and I’ll call you a liar because I’m tellin’ you, you have NOT.

“I am accepting and embracing my Kummerspeck.”

“This Kummerspeck gives me a great excuse to buy new jeans.”

“He loves me, Kummerspeck and all, bless him.”

German is the coolest language, people. There are legitimate German words that are as long as your arm because they just cram together a mess of small words to give a name to whatever complicated concept they need a name for. The potential for linguistic gold abounds here. I mean, “grief-bacon”. It’s POETRY.

Allow me to suggest a few more useful terms:

Aufgabeverflieg: “mission-evaporate”. Walking into a room and immediately forgetting why you are there. “I’ve had three attacks of aufgabeverflieg since I woke up this morning.”

Modearschentleer: “fashion-fanny-deflator”. That pair of pants you buy in three different colors because for some wonderful but inexplicable reason they make your butt look small. “My modearschentleer are wearing thin in the arsch area – time to order four more.”

Anschliessenschluckaufstreich: “hookup-hiccup-hoax”. The act of faking internet connection problems to get out of a Zoom call that you never wanted to be on in the first place. “Turn your camera on, sweetie – your anschliessenschluckaufstriech ain’t foolin’ nobody.”

Okay, none of these have the beauty of “grief-bacon”. But then I’m only a quarter German, and I certainly never claimed to be a poet.

But glory, people – I am ending the month with less Kummerspeck than I started it with. And now I have the word to name my antagonist!