Last night Mamta and I came home late from her cousin Jonas’s birthday party.  It took me a while to peel Mamta away from the movie — How to Train Your Dragon — that she and the other kids were watching.  Annette had gone home ahead of us by bike.

Mamta rode her scooter to the subway station and I jogged alongside her. As we descended the stairs, we saw two workers in red overalls operating commercial floor scrubbing equipment by the ticket machine. They were just finishing cleaning the tile floor of the subway platform.  The damp tiles glistened, and the scent of detergent hung in the air.

Mamta and I jostled for dibs on the ticket machine, and I then grabbed her scooter and rolled down the brightly-lit platform.  We could see from the signboard above the platform that our train would be arriving in three minutes.  We were the only people waiting for the train.

I started scootering around one of the columns in the middle of the platform — and wiped out on the slick tiles.  I sheepishly arose, and Mamta took over the scooter.  We ended up chasing each other in circles around the column.  When we heard the train approaching, we stopped and folded up the scooter.

“Hey,” I heard a voice call out to us as we headed for the train.  It was one of the workers we had seen operating the cleaning equipment.  A young guy.  Serious.  “You shouldn’t be fooling around like that on the subway platform.  It’s not a playground.”

I was — the word in German is “verblüfft.”  A combination of taken aback, amazed and bewildered.  I was also touched by his concern, and slightly amused.  I didn’t consider what Mamta and I had been doing to be at all risky or dangerous.  On the other hand, accidents do happen.

“Ja, Sie haben Recht,” I replied.  You’re right.  With appreciation for Germany’s culture of order, I hustled to join Mamta on the train.