Old-fashioned money. You must have that at home. Especially when the Third World War breaks out and Putin comes our way with his North Korean ‘volunteers’. It starts with cyber threats. First the ATMs will malfunction and you will no longer be able to send a payment. This is because the network cables on various seabeds have been sabotaged. By the Chinese? Also! Actually by everyone. Rutte may also have done it. After the computers, it is the turn of gas, water and electricity.
Hence the classic money that you must have at home. But that also puts you at great risk of being robbed. Because of a few balaclavas on fat bikes. You don’t hear that coming. Where do you hide your hard-earned savings? Between one of the seventeen layers of your comfortable box spring? Or just in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator? A pan in your kitchen also seems to be a good place. I would give Frits van Eerd a call. He probably has some tips. Or Sywert. Apparently he also has a few million hidden away.
You need cash. For food, drinks and of course you need to be able to vape. Especially when you are young. Vaping does not seem to be without risk. Collapsed lungs and hemoptysis teenagers report to the emergency department every day. Plus you’ll get cancer anyway. This legal scum, shrouded in chemical haze, which we all know how bad it is, will not be banned. Simply because the extra excise duty on this poison saves our education budget. That was decided this week. The rest of the education money is taken from healthcare and the NPO. So this is the last year in which you can see how lavishly the Bauertjes illuminate their house at Christmas time. Kilometers of lampposts that you can see from the moon. But soon there will be no more money for that. It will be managed.
We get them back in our homes and in our pockets. The ten, twenty and fifty euro notes plus the old-fashioned jingling coins of course. That’s a lot more fun for our homeless people at the supermarket. In recent years, they heard all those lugging around full shopping bags shouting that unfortunately they had no loose money with them.
Speaking of bums. Will Assad have taken some cash from his prosperous Syria? Or will the Swiss arrange that for him? And does Putin charge rent to this outcast benefactor or does this kind of fool have a mutual gentlemen’s agreement? It is a pity that Syria is in danger of becoming democratic. Now FIFA is no longer interested in organizing a great World Cup there. Although that democracy is also being doubted. According to pessimists, the Islamic Kalashnikovs will tighten their headscarves again in no time.
How moving to see the liberation of that tortured country. All those relieved people returning. Did I see a coach in that long traffic jam with a loudly honking Marjolein Faber behind the wheel? She was only annoyed that she was stuck in a traffic jam, but that was because of border control.
Speaking of traffic jams: what will happen to the cars of the Syrian blood executioner? He had quite a bit of junk in his garage. Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and a Tesla of course. He was very environmentally conscious. Did he use all those cars to do his daily shopping or did they serve as storage for his mustard gas supply? Because he had to put that stuff somewhere.
I typed this piece at night. To the rhythm of exploding cobras that criminals have hung on front doors here in Amsterdam. Every few minutes an explosion sounds. Rotterdam and The Hague are also a kind of Gaza at night. Payment is made on an ongoing basis. What is charged? A container of stolen coke, a boat of hashish, a kidnapped woman or perhaps a poorly put together wedding dress that turned out to have been worn far too often. Last weekend that bridal shop went into a frightful frenzy. Six innocent deaths. That war has already started. I’m just going to take a pin.