Polystyrene

As lovers of a good glass of wine we gave ourselves the luxury to order wine from Spain. While some goods you order from nearby towns in the UK sometimes might take weeks to be delivered; the boxes with wine arrived within a week. Packaged in a very safe way, so there is no breakage, they used polystyrene in the shape of a crate for  safety. Well done!

Getting rid of garbage nowadays is a very serious matter: we sometimes have hours of discussion to come to an agreement about in which bin certain articles must be put, to do it in the right way. We try to do our share in recycling where we can, but the guidelines on the leaflet ot the garbage collecting company or the site of the council are not always very clear. To do the right thing I asked one of the garbage men how to do dispose of it in the proper way. I was a bit surprised, but NO it could not be recycled.

The next week I was fully prepared: I had put the polystyrene in plastic bin bags and put them together with the black bin that is destined for household waste. To make it easier I put the bags next to the bin. Because of a strong wind I had to replace them a few times, but I was pleased to do that for a good cause. I kept my eyes on the road: after the garbage collectors are gone, it's best to take the wheelie bins from the street as soon as possible to prevent the wind having little games with them.

When they came I was surprised to see one of the men fiddling with the bags instead of taking them along. I ran out of the house to see what was going on. I saw him placing red stickers on the bags. As a former citizen of the Netherlands I realised that this meant danger! Over there you first get yellow stickers and after that red stickers when you do something wrong. The first ones are a warning, the second ones mean that you are banished from the garbage collection society for some time.

I told the man I had asked his colleague what I should do to offer up my polystyrene and that I thought I was meant to do it in this way. He shook his head:
"No, the polystyrene should be in the bin." I started putting the bags in the bin.
The man shook his head again:"No you can't do that, the bags are stickered."
I pulled the stickers off the bags, which was not easy; he looked at me in amazement.
I put the now heavily damaged bags in the bin.

He thought a few seconds and took all of the bags including the polystyrene bags out of the bin and put everything under his arms. His mates didn't have the time to wait for his discussions with me, so they were already driving out of the street. My new friend ran after them with my bags under his arms. Two of the bags now were really ripped open and a bit of polystyrene was flying around in the street. He managed to catch it and ran out of the street, out of my sight.

My wife asked me what happened and I told her about my experience; she was not very positive about the system. I disagreed, told her I was glad I was in the UK. In the Netherlands the man would eventually have refused to take the bags along, he would have told me that even when the stickers were removed that still didn't take away the fact that they had been stickered and that the warning I had received was very valid. I reminded her of the neighbour in the Netherlands who had put food waste in biological dissolving bags. She had got a warning for putting her food waste in plastic bags. Even in appeal this stood.

Rules are rules!
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The Car Booklet

At first he thought it was a stupid present. A small notebook and then they added a pencil and an eraser. His uncle and aunt probably had no idea what to give a 9-year-old boy on his birthday. At first he just left it in the living room until his mother said something about it. Then he put it in the bottom of his closet.

He never played much. He saw only girls outside school: his sisters and a few neighboring girls. They lived on a quiet road that ran through a forest. There were only four houses on the road. It was half an hour's walk to school, so boys in his class never wanted to come with him. He thought that was fine, he liked to read. Therefore, he was also very happy that his parents decided to take the reading portfolio. Actually there was only one magazine for him: the Donald Duck. But he also read the rest, except Woman's Own, because it was always about knitting, cooking and such.

He read a piece about plane spotters in the magazine Playmate. At first he thought they were people who were saying ugly things about airplanes. That would have been crazy. But it was not like that at all. These people would look at airplanes at airports and then write down what they saw.
It gave him an idea: he could do something like that with cars. After all, he had that notebook and then he could write down license plates, make and type of the car and the country it came from.

And so he wanted to go out with Father's fishing stool, but Father did not allow that and he had to put it back. He knew another solution: a little further in a bend in the road was a fence and you could sit on it. A great plan.
He had checked the clock before he left. He put the time at the top of the page and then all he had to do was to wait for the cars.

Not much came by, but because of that bend in the road they did not drive quickly and he could see everything quite well.
His eldest sister came over, being curious, she wanted to know what he was doing. And she thought it was stupid: it was of no use to anybody, she said.
But he quickly responded: if crooks or spies drove past, he would have written them down nicely! And that could be useful for the police.
His sister snorted contemptuously, but left him alone after that.

Sometimes it was quite difficult, like the time a military column passed. He could only have noted the first - with the red flag - and the last - with the green flag. Once a car came from the country CH. He had looked in the atlas, but he couldn't find the land. Even father didn't know where that country was, but he would check it out.
A day later he received the answer, father had it written down. It was Communautee Helvetia, Switzerland. Father couldn't tell why they used that crazy name.

He was lying on his bed on a warm summer evening. He couldn't sleep and through the open window he could hear the birds chirping and his parents talking to the neighbors. A car stopped in front of the house. He got out of bed and looked out the window. Police!
Right, here things were really happening. They knew about his book and they came to have a look.
He heard his parents say "come in".

His parents and the police were in the living room, he could hear them talking and one of the officers said "checked". After a while they left. The living room was quiet for a moment. He could hear his oldest sister coming out of her room and walking down the stairs. He decided to follow her example and took his car booklet along. There was a good chance that he would have to come to the police station with his booklet tomorrow.
In the room he saw that Mother was crying, Father looked very sad and said that the police had come to tell that Grandpa had died.

His sister climbed onto Mother's lap and started crying.
He himself just felt weird. He only felt disappointment with his booklet; felt guilty, he also wished he was in grief. Of course crying was not necessary, men and big boys did not do that. Father would probably say something about it if he did.
So he just stood next to Father, who took his hand and squeezed it a little. He squeezed back, he didn't know what else to do.

He had put his booklet on the table and looked at it.
His sister was right: it was of no use to anybody.
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Pedro

Our family living in the seventies with six children and father having a just adequate salary at the railroads, things were not very luxurious. Things became even more problematic when the oldest three, including me, became teenagers. To give us pocket money was almost impossible, so my oldest sister and I decided to make our own money by hiring ourselves out as babysitters. This was also very convenient, because we would have a bit of space and quiet to do our homework for school.

We were allowed to keep the money ourselves, so my sister spent hers on the skirts and dresses she was normally not allowed to have. My father was absolutely disgusted with her short mini skirts, declaring that it was asking to get bladder infections and he would not have any pity for her. He didn't like my spending of money either, hated every note of music on the albums of popmusic I bought.

Sometimes my sister took friends back to our home; my father was always interested but kept making his comments about the ridiculous short skirts. One day she came home with a girl with an ultra short outfit and a big white cat. Both were very friendly. The girl was called Brenda and had to go home pretty soon, but the cat didn't have one. Father was out working and my mother's mind was not strong enough to resist our pleas to let the cat stay. "But only if your father agrees."

The cat got the name Pedro and an old banana box to sleep in. The sisters arranged a nice bed for him with old doll clothes, which my mother regarded as a waste of nice things. But it looked nice and the cat even liked it, understanding what we wanted for him. The box was placed in the kitchen and all we had to do was to get some cat food and wait for father's judgement. He would be home quite late, so we would have to wait till the next morning to hear this.

Father came home in the night and obviously had taken the box and the cat outdoors, because the next morning we could see the box under the little school desk in the back garden. It was a Saturday, so we were able to have some negotiations with father. It was decided that the cat should stay outdoors, but did not have to go. All the children were a bit disappointed with this, but my sister put a finger to her lips and grinned. I think we all understood: just pretend he has his way and we'll have Pedro indoors whenever we can.

Pedro became very soon Patey and was spoiled every day. He understood the house and the surroundings became his territory and he decided to mark it to warn other cats off. The tom cat spray is very smelly, quite a horrible odour and of course my father was very unhappy about this. My oldest sister knew the solution: have the cat neutered. My father didn't have to think about that: "I'm not going to pay for that! He'll have to go." My sister and I reacted in one voice: "We'll pay for that."
Father grumbled a bit, but it happened like we wanted.

All was great with Patey and us children and I noticed that mother secretly gave him nice bites of food. There were some incidents: Patey proved to be an excellent hunter, killing nests of mice, little birds and even ducklings. My youngest sisters would be in tears and I expected father to banish Patey, but to my surprise he just explained to the little girls that this was what nature was about. He grew fatter because of our good food and the hunting stopped. 

One day I came home and Patey was lying on the doormat in the kitchen. He didn't lift his head, he was obviously very ill. My parents were in the living room and they were aware he was not well at all.
"You can't just leave him there to die!", I exclaimed. They just shrugged, father added that he was not going to pay a hefty bill from a vet.

My oldest sister and I wanted to pay the bill for the vet again, but had a problem. We had no money at all. She had spent everything on a new outfit to impress her new boyfriend and I had bought an expensive camera which had been used to make very arty black and white pictures of the cat, canals and railroad tracks. We both felt very bad about having no money for our beloved cat. That night my father agreed that Patey could sleep in his box in the kitchen. I wouldn't call it sleep; he was in a coma.

The next day the situation was the same and we were desperate for a solution. My sister came home that afternoon with one. Brenda told her about the veterinary academy that was part of the university in the near big city. They treated all animals, from gerbils to horses and mostly without a fee. She already had made enquiries: cats were treated for free too.

The next day was a Saturday again and Patey was put in an overnight bag with his trusted doll clothes and we went by train to the university city. (We could travel for free having a father that worked for the railroads.) It was a short trip by bus to the university after that. Once in a while we stroked Patey who a few times moaned in a high pitched voice, but for the rest hardly moved at all.

It was not a long wait in the clinic. A young guy wearing a rubber apron over his clothes came to get our cat. He talked to us and the cat in a very calming way, said that the cat was in good hands. He asked us if we trusted him and we nodded. Of course, there was no alternative. We waited with the empty bag between us and neither of us said a word. Finally the guy came back, there was some blood on the apron and he had no cat with him.

He shook his head and told us that Patey had been a very old cat and had died of old age. He would have been between 13 and 18 years old. My sister blurted out:
"But we had him neutered not even two years ago." The guy had to laugh:
"That must have been a bit sad for the old chap." He offered to get the dead cat for us so we could bury him, but we declined his kind offer. We both didn't like the thought of bringing a dead Patey back to our little sisters.

So he shook our hands and said goodbye. All the way back we didn't speak at all. I think my sister had the same vision in her mind: the guy with the blood on his apron. Probably Patey's blood. He had looked like a butcher and we had brought the poor cat over there to be slaughtered. Maybe a real vet had given a different result, but we would never know. I never should have bought the camera.
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Sou-nen

It was Adrie's turn to choose where we would spend the break. As always, most colleagues lingered in the canteen, where you could buy cheese and ham balls with a cup of watery soup. The cheese always reminded me of insoles and I always kept away from the ham, which many covered with a layer of mustard to give it some flavor.

Adrie and I were always happy to get away from the office with a musty smell everywhere. "The air of mature files" as we called it. Even in the canteen you could smell it, it seemed to hang in the clothes of the employees. Like my only friend in the company, I was also not keen to bring a packed lunch from home, which is why we were in our free time in cafes and the like, where we ordered an omelet or a Russian egg with a coffee or, if it was warm, a beer.

This time, he chose to go to a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from the office. On the way we met a street musician who mistreated "Mister Tambourine Man". "You should be ashamed of yourself," said Adrie, "you should pay us to hear this!" He pretended to dive into the cigar box containing a few coins. The song was interrupted with a curse and some kind of threat with the guitar. We walked on laughing as the musician handled another song.

The Chinese restaurant had a takeaway section, which we walked through to get to the tables. My friend walked through it as if he were a regular, who even had a favorite table. As we sat and went through the menu, I asked about it. I was right, he came here more often. I noticed that he looked around restlessly. An elderly Chinese lady was standing behind the take-away counter, which also served as a bar. She called back something unintelligible and a moment later a young super slim Chinese girl appeared at our table.

Suddenly Adrie had a bright red blush on the cheeks. I took a good look: the Chinese was or seemed quite young and had a lovely face. "Can I already take the order or would you first like to look further in the menu?" she asked in almost flawless Dutch. We both ordered a spring roll special and a beer. As she walked away I couldn't resist saying something, "Now I understand why we went here! Be careful not to drool." Adrie got redder in his face and I decided not to make it harder for him.

He was struggling enough: every time she came to our table (with the spring rolls, the beer and the bill) he struggled to get his words out. When she walked away he watched her with a sigh.

On the way back to the office, he confessed that he thought he was in love. He only gave himself little chance with such a nice girl with his thin, receding hair and floppy ears. I tried to give him some courage; "You can always try. Just ask her out." He sighed gloomily.

The following breaks went to the Chinese restaurant again and again. Adrie sometimes ordered a tomato soup in addition to the now traditional spring roll, where he stirred large amounts of sambal. After a week I caught the name of the girl, who apparently worked every day. Sou Nen was called by her mother, or grandmother, or aunt, when we came in again. From now on I had to hear her name every now and then. My friend said it as if he tasted something very tasty.

After a few weeks it sounded next to me on the way to the office: "I'm going to ask Friday. I'm going to do it." I just nodded; I wondered if he could find the courage.

That Friday he was very quiet on his way to restaurant "De Lange Muur", the sweat was on his forehead and he looked straight ahead. Even the pitiful street musician was safe this time.

We sat down at our usual table again, while Adrie seemed white this time. He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the napkin. The older lady, as always, called back. When I looked that way, I saw an elderly Chinese shuffle our way. She looked exactly like the lady behind the take-away counter. Maybe her sister? Adrie saw it now and murmured something under his breath. As always, the spring roll was ordered again, with a beer. The tip that my friend usually gave was almost omitted this time.

The Chinese restaurant was visited a few more times, until Adrie suggested playing billiards for an hour instead of eating that eternal spring roll. We never saw Sou Nen again.

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