What to write? How should I summarize this in a reader-worthy column? This affects all of the Netherlands. Because what a spectacle, who would have ever thought? This was unthinkable a few years ago! With me, it has actually been Alarm Phase One for the entire month of November. So what do you choose? The choice is so great! I still told my daughter that it must be a deliberate choice. My inbox has been full of good advice for weeks. But do I go to Bol.com or still go to Coolblue, Amazon, IKEA? Hema, Hunkemoller or Praxis? Or still a few tickets at stunt price. The latter – traveling cheaply and shouting loudly in the pub – has been possible again since the day before yesterday. I suspect flying is completely ok again, it can go that fast. So the woke dramming totally backfired, and thus not avelinks (joke borrowed from colleague Dylan Cinjee). With every drop of glue to highway or artwork, much of the Netherlands became further disconnected from its own certainties. The cancel culture canceled, the cookie cutter. I just received the first email again with Black Friday offers. Babybjorn cry baby French, English course for BBBeginners, Booklet “learning poker for liberals,” pogo sticks to jump over your own shadow, and whatnot. Let there be no mistake about it, I don’t really care what you voted (as long as you voted.) But in the meantime, I still didn’t know what to click. What do I need? A nice sliding iron, a third TV, a gold litter box? Finally that Le Creuset cast iron skillet, proof that you have disposable income but very likely can’t cook at all? My whole kitchen is full of Staub and Le Creuset and I just microwave. And all in the face of the extremely expensive December festivities when even the budget supermarkets want to foist truffle prut with red port jelly and vegan duck beak bavarois on me at exorbitant prices. Holidays huh? Then everything must be expensive because then you have taste. Oh yes, even then there must be pricey gifts because the euro is the unit of measurement of love. So bring on your bottle of Billionaire with hints of horny frog musk and a hint of laveldelyuzu. Or the caramel sea salt-scented “Air de sluttylonely. But I chose! I’m waiting. Black Blijday. Zero euros. For what? A Christmas party with 23 packages per meeting containing crap from faraway China, nine bins of cardboard and packaging plastic, and an army of delivery vans? And still half of that directly returned in the same vans the week after the holidays. I’ll just buy a few plane tickets later, destination anywhere, memories forever. And so I guess, at the bottom line, better for the environment too. Remains important, of course.
