Klaus and Dieter, two recent arrivals from an eastern part of Germany, were eager to immerse themselves in Austrian life.

The tram hummed past, its red and white silhouette gliding along the grandeur of the Ringstraße. Klaus and Dieter stepped onto the pavement, the scent of roasted chestnuts curling through the crisp autumn air.

“Wien,” Klaus muttered, drinking in the golden domes, the baroque facades, the precision of order embedded in every corner. “This ain’t Karl-Marx-Stadt.”

Dieter, watching a violinist echo delicate notes beneath the shadows of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, replied, “No, it most definitely is not.”

They wandered past cafés glowing in soft lamplight, velvet booths cradling slow-moving conversations. Everything was polite, elegant—too elegant. So they peeled off and found a pub.

Inside, their voices—loud and unfiltered—cut through the polished hush. Their gestures were sharp, unfamiliar. The bartender—stoic, stern—poured their beers with the forced grace of hospitality.

Their barstool chatter swung from money to gambling, then dipped into skepticism about the value of education and literacy.

Coincidentally, an educational TV segment flickered behind the bar. The host posed a question: “What does counter-clockwise mean?” Dieter asked the bartender, who was unsure but didn’t want to look bad——he picked a direction at random and pointed right. Klaus and Dieter glanced at the mirrored screen, where the host, reversed, appeared to confirm what they thought they saw. “He was right!” Dieter exclaimed.

Weeks later, under the murky guidance of bravado and a pirated security manual, they found themselves in the back office of a local insurance firm. The door had been forced. The hallway scanned for cameras (they missed one—infrared, dome-mounted). Their objective: disable the alarm before the motion sensors picked them up.

The alarm system was basic but functional: a mechanical rotary bypass control beneath a protective panel, illuminated by glowing instructions. Printed in clear language: "Turn selector switch counter-clockwise to disarm alarm. Auto-reset active after 30 seconds."

They turned the knob clockwise. The control panel let out a faint click. Then came the siren—shrill, unmistakable. A red light blinked furiously.

Ten minutes later, they were surrounded by police.