Sometimes I dream ahead of time. Like last night. It was 2025 and I wanted to enter the Jumbo van Blaricum. It may also have been Laren’s. In any case, it was a village where everyone had ‘skiing & golfing’ in the basic package at secondary school. So in the Throw. At the door I met a colorful group, each with their own Villalozen newspaper.
First of all Jack van Gelder, who shouted that they were just jokes. Okay, misplaced jokes from an overweight sixties, but everyone made those jokes. That was just corporate humor. And the majority were obese people in their sixties. They talked more about fucking than it actually happened. Next to Jack was his former editor-in-chief Maarten Nooter, who explained through sign language and a messy note that he was hard of hearing.
“Say deaf,” laughed Jack, “and he needs to go to the ophthalmologist too! In fact, for twenty years!”
Maarten held up ten fingers twice and explicitly pointed to his ears.
Tom Egbers, who had also been kicked out at home, had to laugh at this. He kept aloof and was mainly concerned about good old Mart Smeets, who explicitly asked all Jumbo customers if they still knew him. He used to be on television often. With sports. What is that? Sport is very simple: that you push your limits again and again. Mart asked if it might be nice if Ivo Niehe interviewed him. Ivo is just as big a giant as he is. According to Martin then. And according to Ivo, of course.
Next to the former sports editors stood little Dolf, who until recently was the boss at Heineken. He had left there a year earlier because the company had to apply for state aid. A year earlier they had blundered gloriously in Russia. Just been wrong. Bit wrong? No, dark brown. Dolf wanted a beer, but they were quite expensive for a support puller. I thought Dolf was a nice name in this case.
Next to him were Wopke and Hugo, who had been homeless for a while, who once ran a political party together. A Christian club. Wiped out in 2023 by a farmer who wasn’t a farmer. That was voter fraud. Wopke asked what Hugo was texting anyway. That was none of Wopke’s business. Or as he put it measuredly: “I like to keep that between Sywert and myself!”
Wopke said he was counting on some former Minerva buddies, who would help him out of the shit and get him a ‘position elsewhere’. Something at Shell or something. But there the cash had just been grabbed by a former CEO, who was always called ‘Ben die beurde’ in the corridors.
Suddenly John & Linda came running. Jack and Mart asked if this brother and sister also belonged to this club. But the rest said that this illustrious duo always came incognito to hunt for bargains after sunset. They didn’t just get them for themselves, but for the entire shelter. So also for Marco, Ali B, Matthijs and the youngest Römer, who again ran a homework class for young girls there. Bit of extra work.
Mart asked what kind of shelter that was. A kind of orphanage for fallen broadcast giants. Run by John & Linda.
“Too small for your ego,” said the OM’s longest-running boss to Mart. This Gerrit van der Burg, who did not understand that they had all given up their jobs, continued cheerfully.
“Keep working stoically,” he shouted, “consequences are for dumbasses and assholes!”
Then the supermarket door opened. Frits van Eerd stepped outside. Clearly dented and somewhat confused. With his biography From stock filler to bag filler under his arm. What did he come to do? He looked a little glassy ahead.
Then he cried softly and muttered almost inaudibly: “Shall we start a nice band together? A Brabant mop orchestra? A kind of Jostiband for stumbled souls. And that we then go through the Gooi in a long polonaise? And then we also wave to the people. Very submissive waving!”
A version of this article also appeared in the March 11, 2023 newspaper