| Service or a Sense of Style? |
Who earns his crust where?
|
I live on Brouwersgracht, where quite a few people are in the habit of
putting out the rubbish at night. This in turn attracts other people who are
hopeful that they might stumble upon something valuable (we call them
"morning stars"), or who are simply looking for something to eat. This can
be a messy process as well as a noisy one, the accompanying rustling and
jangling (apparently not nearly every empty bottle is taken to the bottle
bank) having a way of sounding much louder at night. It's not so much the
romance of nocturnal gain that I mind. It's the mess, which is often left
for days on end as a permanent source of irritation. I never know quite how
to handle this kind of situation.
My wife once showed me what to do: she opened the window and politely asked whoever it was down there to please be good enough to put everything back in the bags once they had finished - which they duly did. And so, having been stirred by continual terse rustling and clinking down below, I found myself looking out of the window last night, preparing to ask a question similar to that of my wife's. And then someone from an adjacent house chucked some water or something out of the window. An indignant "Oi!" erupted from the target, who nevertheless continued unperturbed. I felt that this incident had done away with my right to ask questions, and withdrew to the shade of my darkened windows - quite unsatisfied, I might add. Having reached a state of spiritual truce after a further spot of pondering, I looked outside again and established that everything had been put back in the bags. Now that's what I call awe-inspiring. |