Wolf – A friend of German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned her during the country’s version of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire”, only to get the leader’s voicemail – twice.

Wolfgang Bosbach , a member of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, made the calls as part of the “phone-a-friend” lifeline of the show, but had no luck.

He was trying to get Merkel, who has been Germany’s head of state since 2005, to answer a question about an East German washing machine.

Merkel grew up in the German Democratic Republic, which was part of the Soviet Union.

The question was what made the East German WM66 washing machine legendary. The answer was because people used it to stew fruit.

Bosbach would have won almost $700,000 for charitable causes if he had got the question right.

Instead, he decided to quit on $170,000.

Shame on you, Wolfgang. The number one rule of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is don’t count your chickens before  they’re hatched. So you get a question that you don’t know, and elect to use your “phone a friend” lifeline. Who do you call? The most important/busiest person in your entire country. Suave move. I’m sure she’s sitting at home eating whatever German people eat just waiting for your call. Not only did you let me down, but you let down the great people of Germany. This should be a lesson to all those people out there who think Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is such an easy game: if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. On a side note, Wolfgang is an unbelievably badass name and I wish my mom named me that.

– Ryan