Garth

Everybody differs from others, but colleague Garth was really different. He had an excellent knowledge of a lot of things, but in particular about his work field in the office. On top of that he was always available to give you very good, very thorough advice if you had questions about foreign taxes or social insurances. The thoroughness was great, but also a disability. He seemed to be never able to make decisions on the cases he handled. There were always new questions to be asked, other aspects to be looked upon. He would talk about this in a very loud way which was not exactly everybody's cup of tea, so it had been hard to find someone who wanted to share a room with him.

He had a habit that required a lot of his working hours. Garth always wanted to check packages on which was mentioned ca. or approx.. After counting the amount of things, like bolts; nuts; tissues; rubber bands; raisins and so on, he would exclaim: "There are never more than they say there should be! This tells you 50 paperclips, but there are only 46. That's thievery! If it's 49 I can understand, but 46 is ridiculous.

One day Garth told everybody he had thought of something ingenious. He had designed a spreadsheet that would warn him when he should buy a new box of sugar cubes for the coffee. He refused to use the sachets the office provided with our coffee. According to him in that sugar there were chemicals added; rather he wanted to be safe than sorry. So whenever he took a cube it would be registered on his spreadsheet.

His roommate was not his friend. Garth was always ready to point out that he didn't have friends, he seemed to be proud of that. If anyone said Thank you my friend, he would react with You're not my friend. I don't have friends. I had a nickname for his roommate, never told others about it. For me he was You have to be crazy wanting to work over here and got along very well with This is not MY work. They would get extra coffee from the machine for their endless coffee sessions together with various other colleagues. Normal talk would be to complain about the work stress and the awful management.

The two of them came up with something and they had to tell everybody in the hallway. In every room were two workers and the two friends went from room to room, bursting with laughter.
They had added one sugar cube to the box Garth was saving in his desk. "Let's see what happens."
They warned me: "You are not going to ruin the fun." I told them I don't want anything to do with it.
After a few days Garth himself went from room to room: "I don't get this. The spreadsheet is not correct. I have one cube extra. This can't be right."

The coffee sessions of the friends and their mates were filled with laughter for days on end. After a week colleague You have to be crazy to work over here got some remorse and told Garth what they had done. That solved the problem for Garth but also ruined the work relation between him and the pranksters. You have to crazy to work over here had to switch desks with a female colleague who had been ill for months and could not object sharing an office room with a person with no friends.
After she finally returned to the office she turned out to be able to get along with Garth very well.
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Paul McCartney

The old man knew exactly what he should give his beloved wife for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. She had told him over and over again how beautiful this rose named after a former Beatle was. Together they had watched a program on television about English gardens and they showed this rose as one of a few new species of plants. It took him only a few phonecalls to learn that he would have to drive to Truro to get one for the garden.

Together with their neighbours he found an excuse for not taking her along on a ride with the car. The two men were supposed to buy a new drill for the neighbour. Both women were not interested in this at all and so he could get what he wanted and keep it as a surprise. After the purchase he came home and put the little rosebush in the garage on a spot where she certainly would not look. The two men told her that the price for the drill had been too high and that the neighbour had decided not to buy it.

The next morning while she was having a shower, he sneaked out to the garage and put the rosebush in the kitchen. She had been a bit silent, probably thinking that he had forgotten that this was their wedding anniversary. She had been in good spirits, even a bit over the top and he had to chuckle how she could not really hide her disappointment from him. When she came out of the bathroom in her bathrobe, he asked her to follow him to the kitchen. And there it was: the Paul McCartney rose.

"Happy Anniversary, Darling", he said with a big smile.
"Oh Fred, what a lovely gift! I thought you forgot all about it."
He laughed: "I forget a lot nowadays, but not that I'm married to you, my Love."
After breakfast they went to the front garden to search for a nice spot where it could be planted, because she decided that she wanted everybody to see the lovely rose. She showed him what the best spot was and he planted it for her.

The rosebush grew steadily thanks to the good care from the old lady, but the bigger it got the health of the old man deteriorated. After a few years he died and she was on her own.
She would still make the joke to people they had made together. Whenever people asked where they lived, she would answer: "It's the house with Paul McCartney in front of the house."
People would look at her questioningly and she would explain. Sometimes she would add that it was the greatest gift he had ever given to her except for her wedding ring.

The years were getting harder and harder to get through for her on her own and she died only a few years later while Paul McCartney was in full bloom.
She had always loved gardening and that was quite obvious when you looked at it.
The daughter and her family came over for the funeral and to take care of the house and the garden, having to decide what should happen to it. It would feel like sacrilege to let the garden be ruined and so they did what they could to maintain it with a bit of help from the neighbours.

Most of the garden did okay, but the Paul McCartney rosebush suffered. You could almost see it getting worse in front of your eyes. Like it had no wish to go on anymore.
After a few days it died. The family let it be for a few days. After the estate agent advised to get the garden in topshape to give the house more kerb appeal for selling it, they knew they had to get it out of the ground and get rid of it.
Later one of the neighbours asked about the rosebush and got the answer that Paul McCartney had been disposed of in the bin. The house was sold only a few weeks later.
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KitKat Junky

After my last roommate in the office had been transferred to an office in the North of the country I had been on my own. I was quite happy with that, could do whatever I wanted with the room. So I had filled the empty spaces on the wall with prints of painting by Kandinsky and Joan Miro and could listen to an Amsterdam radio station that played Indian music all day. These were great days.

I knew these days had ended when my manager entered the room with "Let me introduce you to your new roommate. June, can you come in?"
There she was, June. I remembered her quite well from the first years of my life at the tax office. She was still as big and ugly as ever.
I gave a big smile and got up: "Well hello June! That's a long time ago I've seen you. How are things?"
The manager nodded approvingly: "It's obvious that you two know each other. Maybe you can help June getting started? There will be some files delivered within an hour, but she will need pen, pencils and so on. I understood:  "No problem. Do you want me to introduce her to everybody?"
The manager shook his head: "No need, you were the last one she needed to meet, being in the outskirts of the office."

Soon I saw that she had not changed at all. My art had to go, was replaced by a picture of her two sons and a picture of the office in which we both had started our career. The radio had to be on a channel with popsongs from the eighties and nineties. I went along with it all, love my peace, too lazy for quarrels.
Her workdays were filled a bit differently to mine. She liked to talk and she liked even more to talk a lot. I was not perfect in doing this, so she would phone her sister and some former colleagues to update the gossip.

A lot was about her wondering why everyone was always losing weight like anything and she was doing this crash diet and she was not even losing an ounce. This would be also discussed with me, at least she tried to. Then there were the health issues; she sometimes phoned that she was ill and would describe what kind of fluids were leaving her body; enough to lose your appetite for some hours. Once she asked me if I took showers with my daughters. She did this with her boys, who were of the same age as my children, ten and twelve. She described how she would clean their willies. I told her that my daughters probably would kill me if I would suggest something like that.

It was amazing how she managed the refurbishment of the family's house. The husband did the work, but for everything he needed her approval of his ideas. So he would make drawings of this and faxed to them to our office. June had a good look and would phone him to tell him what she thought of it. This went on for a few weeks.
Later there was the matter of a nice house in the neighbourhood of the village she lived in of which the owner had died. She phoned her sister who was a colleague in another tax office which was in charge of handling cases in her village and asked her to have a look into the files of the family who were inheriting the house.
Soon she was rubbing her hands: "So they are heavily in debt, you say. I think I will go to the estate agent. I feel I could get this place for a very nice price. Thanks, Sis!"

All in all there was not a lot of time for the work she was supposed to do and I was happy that she was working part-time, which  made it possible for myself to get enough work done in a week. The weeks went on and there came the time when the management had to give an evaluation of the work. Of course they were not happy with her productivity. We were supposed to handle from five to seven cases per day and June did an average of three in a week. A talk was held in front of me.
She defended herself fiercely: "But that's in three days, not in five!"
The manager shook his head: "I would expect fifteen to twenty-one cases being done."
"But I lack knowledge. They never really prepared me properly for this job. I would like a brushing course."
The manager laughed aloud: "I happen to know that you hardly worked the last three years. You have done every course there was on offer. So there's no way I'm going to let you do another one!"

After this talk she became ill for a longer period. I was quite happy on my own again. Being alone never has bothered me.
Once in a while other colleagues would come over to my room and we would discuss cases while drinking coffees. So it was not suprising when colleague Garth entered my room with two coffees in his hands and a file under his arm.

I thanked him for the coffee and he asked about June. I offered to phone her and ask about her illness.
"Oh no, don't! You don't want me to vomit over your desk!"
I had to laugh and took a sip of the coffee.
Garth was sitting behind her desk and played with the grips of the drawers.
"Hey, it's not locked! But look at that! You won't believe this!"
He opened the drawer completely and I walked over to have a look.
It was completely filled with KitKat Chunkies and wrappers of KitKat Chunkies.
I laughed along with Garth: "I think I start to understand why June can't lose weight."
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Partytime with the Picos

                                                          The Picos

My mother's family was quite gifted in making music; in the old days it was not for everybody to have a record player or even a radio. I think that is why people tried to make their own music, playing traditional songs or even creating things themselves. In my family the most popular instrument was the accordion and there were some great uncles who could play very well. They were always the first people to get invited for weddings, parties and such. Payment mostly consisted of free drinks.

                                                The Three Jacksons

In a lot of families this was the case and some of these accordion players became quite famous locally and sometimes even nationally, like the Jacksons, Las Estrellas, Schriebl & Hupperts and many more. In our family the band The Picos was the most important one. Every birthday would start with mother playing the 7 inch record "Partytime With The Picos", it was them playing the Dutch equivalent of Happy Birthday, called "We Wish You a Long Life". Becoming older we would feel a bit embarrassed when that music would sound really loudly through the house and imagined that the whole neighbourhood would witness this.

My parents never knew that the title of the record in the 60's would become a code for the children to warn each other when there were quarrells between my parents or with one or more of the children. If there were harsh words because my eldest sister would want to go out in her miniskirt or I refused to get a haircut or would play my beat music a bit too loudly, the warning would go out to me or my sisters coming home.
"Don't go in! It's Partytime With The Picos!"
We would stay outdoors until things would become quiet again.

The Birthday ritual remained for decades until the record got a scratch. How this happened, or who was the culprit for causing it was never discovered. In the meantime more and more of the children left the parental house and some moved to other countries.
It was my mother who took the initiative to give new musical congratulations. Both my parents could play the harmonica - nicknamed the poor people's accordion - very well.
So now we children would get a very early phonecall with my parents playing on their harmonicas the tune "We Wish You a Long Life".

                                           Hohner

They both had a Hohner,  the Rolls Royce of  harmonicas. My mother would play lead and Father would play the harmonies. It sounded quite good, certainly when you consider their age.
The first one who could not play anymore was Father, he didn't have the breath anymore, but Mother played on and on.
Father died and it was only her who would phone and give the little concert; she continued doing this almost to her last day when she was already in her nineties.

Yet sometimes in dreams I can still hear The Picos playing "We Wish You a Long Life".
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Mother

The journey had been quite smooth, it was not even 10 AM when I walked around my Mother's house to the backdoor. It was the natural way to do it, like I had been entering the house since 1961. Through the window in the back of the house I could see her sitting on her chair. She immediately noticed me, looked at me with wide open mouth. Near the backdoor everything still was like it always was. The metal bins in a row, a piece of a broom and a rag on a nail in the wall. The backdoor still made that strange sound, like it would break; nothing had changed in all these years.

In the kitchen I noticed little notes on the window ("Close before you leave!"), refrigerator ("Be certain the door is properly closed"), cupboards ("Leave everything like it is!").
Even the oven had a note attached to it: "Be certain it is turned off before you go!"
I recognised the writing of my youngest sister who obviously had some problems with people handling things in the kitchen.

I hung my coat on the coat rack, dropped my backpack under it and walked in the living room where she already had opened her arms for me. She was wearing a Christmas jumper, a bit surprising when Easter is near. I embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks: "Hello Ma. Are you surprised to see me? I did tell you."
She laughed: "So lovely to see you, my boy. I always have to see things first before I believe them. How was your crossing? Was the sea a bit friendlier this time?"
"It was very nice. I had a nice evening on the ferry and had a great sleep. I could catch the early train this time. It was all quite perfect."

Mother pointed at the chair of my Father: "Please sit down, don't keep standing there."
I sat down, but could not prevent myself saying: "It almost feels like sacrilege sitting in this chair."
She shook her head: "Don't be silly, my boy. He wouldn't mind you sitting there. Of course not."
I asked her how she had been and she assured me that everything was fine and had been fine. I knew this didn't mean anything. I had witnessed her being in a lot of pain and still saying that she was fine. She didn't like to moan, according to her it didn't bring you anywhere.

She yawned, so I asked if she was tired.
"I'm always tired, I never sleep. What I really would like is to sleep forever, being with your Dad."
I understood very well that she was a bit lonely in the house on her own, but knew too that she had some regular visitors.
I pointed at all the stuff around her: "They do keep you busy."
Mother nodded: "Medicine to swallow, it's almost a pharmacy over here; then there is the water to drink, two liters per day; I have my fruit, today it's apple and grapes. Also I have milk and had a coffee. Oh yes, I still have to finish breakfast, but I don't really fancy that last bit of the sandwich anymore."

I picked up a puzzlebook: "Do you still manage to do these?"
"Yes, I prove to myself by doing them that I didn't lose my sanity."
I picked up the coffee mug: "How about if I make us some new coffee? I certainly could use one."
She was about to answer, but there was some loud banging upstairs, almost like somebody lifting a bed and letting it drop from their hands. "What's that?", I asked a bit alarmed.
"Don't worry. That is Lisa, the new cleaner. You haven't seen her yet. She must be making the bed."

I knew about Lisa. My sisters were quite annoyed by her bullying character, she was very bossy towards our mother and didn't take any notice of what was required of her. Instead of cleaning she would reorganise the kitchen, so my sisters had to search for everything that was needed.
She had taken over from a Bosnian woman whom my mother had liked very much, but who was hired by a care company that was undercut by the company Lisa worked for.

Before I could get up from the chair, she sort of galloped down the stairs and came into the living room.
"I already thought I could hear voices...", she came to me with her hands in rubber gloves, took one off and offered me the ungloved hand. "My name is Lisa."
Mother answered for me: "This is my boy from England. He has an English wife."
Lisa nodded: "So I heard. But look at you! You're not presentable like this, certainly not with your son around."
I wondered what was wrong: maybe the jumper. But no, it was the hair!

I didn't notice it before, but it was a bit longer than normal and this morning it was a bit wild. Lisa grumbled about the nurses who only did half their job.
I defended them by saying that the schedule of these nurses was incredible. They only have a few minutes per client or patient and then have to race to the next one. Lisa was adament: they should have done my mother's hair properly.
"I'll get the brush!"

"Oh no!", my mother moaned softly. I kept silent, I was flabbergasted.
Lisa ran upstairs, came downstairs again, opened every drawer she could find. Sometimes my mother would say: "The brush certainly is not in there." It didn't stop the cleaning lady, who even opened the drawer next to my mother. I knew she kept some cash money in there and so Lisa now knew about this too, but maybe she had done this routine before and this was not new to her.
Lisa sighed, grumbled, even cursed and after every drawer in the living room had revealed it's secrets she ran upstairs again.

Triumphantly she came down again, hairbrush in her hands: "It was in the bathroom after all!"
I thought she was going to brush my mother's hair, but instead she first went to the kitchen and came back with a dripping brush and started to work at my mother's hair. When I was young we were never allowed to come near her hair, could not comb or brush it, we always said that she probably had hairpain. Lisa did it quite roughly; I was surprised Mother did not complain at all.
In the end the hair was sort of glued to her head, it looked a bit ridiculous.
Lisa stood behind her, very proud about her handywork: "See! It's much nicer like this!"
Mother rolled her eyes and pulled a face.
I wrestled not to burst out in laughter, managed to say: "I'll make that coffee now" and almost ran to the kitchen.
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