Misguided bananas, stereotypes and drugs

Some bananas showed up in Aldi supermarkets in Berlin earlier this week, along with 140 kg of cocaine. The drugs were tucked into seven banana crates that ended up at five different stores. The drugs, and the bananas, had been shipped from Colombia to Hamburg, then sent on to Berlin. So while Aldi ended up with a lot of drugs, some Berlin drug dealer is trying to figure out what to do with 140 kg of bananas. 

The haul was worth 12 million euros. It was Berlin's biggest drug bust in 15 years.

Police called it a 'logistical error'. Every article I read on this event featured the same quote:
"I don't know where the mistake was in the perpetrators' delivery chain," said the head of the city's anti-narcotics squad, Olaf Schremm.

This is a very German response. It doesn't make sense to the stereotypical German that a package could not get to where it is supposed to go, on time, with up-to-the-minute tracking information. If DHL can do it with my latest order of mop heads and used novels, why can't an international drug cartel do the same? I mean no offense to you if you are a member of a drug cartel, of course. These mix-ups happen from time to time. I do mean that if there's any stereotypically German job, it's that of logistics.

I confess I wasn't entirely sure what logistics is all about. But now that I have read up on the internet, I am an expert. Logistics is managing the supply and flow of stuff.  From raw materials through transportation, manufacturing, packaging, storage, etc, the logistics people make sure things are done efficiently, according to the rules and on-time. So if we are considering cultural stereotypes (Which of course we are. The logistics experts would agree that it saves a lot of time.), then logistics suits Germans perfectly. The drugs, however, came from Colombia. No matter how organized a drug lord you are, if you are a Latino drug lord you will never be as precise as a German. Your watch, after all, runs on Latino time.

This makes me wonder what a stereotypical American job would be. It has to be big, maybe a little flashy or overly friendly, and big. I think it would be a long-haul truck driver - traveling long distances in a huge vehicle carrying a lot of stuff, eating at truck stops and wearing either a baseball cap or a cowboy hat, talking to strangers on your CB radio with a cool handle like 'red dog'. That sounds pretty American.  But does that mean that the German logistics expert is your boss because he/she has already figured out where your cargo needs to go and when it needs to get there? No, you don't have a boss. You work for yourself because you are an entrepreneur and an innovator. You are a cowboy and a pioneer, and you might be obese. You're an American.

( Sorry - that's enough of my tangent on stereotypes. Let's get back to bananas.)

Even if the Berlin police can't understand how it happened, the banana/cocaine delivery chain got a little tangled up. As a result, a drug lord is out a bunch of money. At the same time, a drug dealer is eating a whole lot of bananas.