Because we are moving again, I called our regular mover to make an appointment. How many cubic meters or how many boxes? Any mover can see this at a glance and without a notebook.
A new gentleman from the moving company told us that we were going to do this using Zoom. Zooming? Yes, he is at the office behind the computer and I am at home with my cell phone along the bookcase, the beds, the wine cellar, my office and the shed. That has been a huge success since corona. That’s how they did it to everyone these days. I audibly hesitantly agreed. I am not everyone. Not for a very long time.
When I hung up, I suddenly saw myself wandering around the kitchen with my phone and heard me stammer the word ‘extractor hood’ at the extractor hood. And that against an invisible Arie, Joop or Kees in a dreary office on a moribund industrial estate where a train is rushing by at that moment. After the extractor hood I heard myself saying pressure cooker, espresso machine, microwave and dishwasher. In addition: is it an Arie, Joop or Kees. Of course it could also be a robot.
So I called off the mover. Fortunately, I got a lady on the phone who understood this boomer. I am a man who knows his wife from a party and not through a lonely dating profile cobbled together in desperation. I also still buy my clothes in a store with a fitting room and a mirror so that I can clearly see that I have not improved physically over the years. And if I bought it, it’s mine and it won’t be returned without question. So no Wehkamp syndrome.
I don’t want to communicate through a camera. With television viewers, but not with ordinary people. I’m too old for that. Or too smart. Or too sensitive.
Someone from the moving company will come by soon and he will get coffee and a cookie and I am curious about his stories about moving lonely drunkards or divorce victims, bankrupt stinkers and cheerful young people looking forward to a new home full of crowing offspring. Of course I also want to know what the most bizarre thing the mover has ever had to move is. For example, a framed farewell letter from the suicidal ex?
Do we already have a moving coach? No, we still do these kinds of things ourselves. Just as I still process my grief without a grief coach. I know crying helps a lot. Together with a handkerchief or a roaring sea that asks no questions and does not give stupid answers.
On the other hand, I prefer to laugh with friends. Like this week at a long table in a large kitchen where we had endless fun watching the elderly supervisory board of the woke broadcaster WNL that had to keep an eye on the fossil Bert Huisjes. That wonderful right-wing us-know-us-know-us-know-us world full of dull honorary job hunters who do not realize that it is now 2024 and the world has changed somewhat.
And of course we laughed about the meeting in which it was initially decided to replace the word mother in the population register with ‘parent from whom the child was born’. People have agreed to that. Someone seriously wrote it down. What an adorable species of monkey we are.
But we laughed most about the story of a friend who, out of curiosity, chose one baby blessing Has been. The connection between mother, baby and ‘loved ones’ is central there. She witnessed the sound healing, the journaling and fiddling with silly cards with which you encourage the ‘parent from whom the child is being born at that moment’.
Our friend had to go to Utrecht for this blessing, where she found a fanatically relaxed crowd. When she got home, she received a request from the baby-blesser if she wanted to give feedback. What did she think? Her answer was simple: pathetic contemporary nonsense! That was later not listed on the injured party’s website. After this story my wife and I decided to move. Long table, lots of stories.