Frida van Roosmalen (3) had stolen our iPad at Schiphol, two days later I stood in line for Lost & Found in a basement at Schiphol. The lost and found department had made a professional impression on me online, but in practice it was more dissolves than found.
A counter, manned by one person, a long line in front of her. It was unclear who was irritated and impatient first, but in the end everyone was not here as the best version of themselves. Lucie van Roosmalen (9) and I started off cheerfully, we still associated Schiphol with holidays, but we were soon sucked down.
In the front a boy in a padded Lacoste jacket. What he had lost remained unclear, but it had been found! But where had it been taken? Calls were made to various locations at Schiphol, nice to see that Schiphol employees also put each other on hold. When there was ultimately no answer at the correct counter, she advised the boy to come back the next day.
He: “Your colleague also said that yesterday.”
The woman, unmoved: “And now I’m doing it again.”
She nodded to the line, there were more, every minute he took added to us.
Next to the queue a man came with a ‘five second question’, he had filmed with his mobile the conversation he had at the same counter the day before. His lost coat was supposed to be at this counter today, he wanted positive confirmation before standing in line for hours. The Schiphol employee watched the video and wanted to look up the issue on the computer, but there was a protest from the woman behind us. An American, it was unclear what had ever been done to her, but she howled that she wouldn’t let anyone tell her anything anymore. The man kicked the counter, he joined behind.
We told her what we had lost, what kind of stickers were on the iPad, but she was hardly interested.
“Serial number?”
Lucie van Roosmalen noted that the iPad may have been put in Leah van Roosmalen’s suitcase, which is not the case.
We looked at each other, then we had already lost.
I wanted to mention the large, striking stickers again, but a man pushed between us and the counter.
What could be more urgent than our tablet?
He had lost his lower teeth on one of the covered terraces and stopped drinking coffee, because that’s what he always did.
“Probably wiped off with a rag. Is it here?”
The Schiphol employee: “You need to speak more clearly.”
The man shouting: “My teeth!”
She still didn’t understand.
“Speak more clearly!”
Marcel van Roosmalen writes a column on Mondays and Thursdays.