Whoring Around

This may be the most appropriate posting I have made since the change of this weblog to "At Home in Ho-land". Okay, sure, the main definition of a "whore" is somebody that offers sex for money, but in the looser sense (no pun intended) of the word, a whore is somebody that does something that they don't want to do for money.

I have had many posts in the past about interesting places I have worked, and over the last year and a half, I have seen so much, been to very interesting places, and met some unforgettable people. In all, this was a great way to reintegrate into my native country of birth. No question. However, reintegration was my keyword of last year. I have nothing left to learn. See, the problem with being a substitute lunch-lady is that whereever you go, you are new. You are inexperienced. You need to be told what to do. Now, I have a little secret to tell you all, but don't tell any caterers this: "All professional kitchens are pretty much the same". But people who stay in the same kitchen for 10plus years love nothing better than to boss around some new person who will probably never come back again.

One year, sure. I can live with that. But now that I have worked for a good half year longer, I am so close to re-enacting this scene from the classic (ly bad) movie, Half Baked:


Honestly, I can't imagine how good that would feel, but I am close. And when you start having these types of fantasies, maybe you should get out while you still don't have a criminal record.

However, it was confirmed that I am a whore. My pimp called me yesterday and gave me a job, and I accepted. Hey, I figure that 'Whore money can buy just as much food as non-whore money.' Just ask a lawyer (they are all whores, by the way).

So, I biked more than half an hour to go the place where I would whore-out my services. It turned out to at be the European Space science centre (think of a lamer version of NASA). Now, most of the people who work here are most-likely, considerable nerds. (and emperical evidence proved that point to be correct). But they are nerds with money. And nerds with money are vengeful. This is why, I beleive, they forced this completely nerdy uniform onto me. For the first time in my catering career, I felt truly degraded. And I have picked up food after people younger than me knowingly dropped it, I have been on my knees scrubbing floors, I have had rearrange an entire walk-in freezer which took so long that my nipples wouldn't subside for days afterwards. But the shame I felt today at the Space Station, as I tried to attach a clip-on bowtie, that cannot be topped. Wait, Yes it can: they also made me wear a stupid paper hat. But i still did it, because I am a whore. And here is the evidence to prove it.

I once wore a bowtie when I was 17, when as a joke I was performing in a talent quest for over 1000 people. My talent was to juggle two tennis balls while climbing through a stringless tennis raquet. However, on the morning of the event, somebody asked me what I was going to wear. "I don't know", I replied, probably in a teenagery way. But it was suggested to me that I go to the costume store to find something ridiculous to wear for it. So I did, and the "costume" I rented for the event was a white shirt and a bowtie. I repeat: this was the most ridiculous thing I could find to wear - at a freaking costume store! So, yes, wearing this today, was so very degrading.

Now, the only other demographic that wears a bowtie are the Chippendale dancers.

So the question is, is being a stripper better than being a whore? Judging from how quickly I took off that bowtie, I think I know the answer.

A Heartfelt Loss

I has been difficult to speak about it, but I should really cover this. The World Cup was a dream come true for me. Now, I am far from a football hooligan, but this was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I was telling people when I was in New Zealand in January that the main reason I was going back to Holland was for the World Cup. (They often asked "You know it will be held in South Africa, right?" Cheeky bastards. Little do they know that the true Way-Kah party is in Holland.)

But for me, the point was, this was the best opportunity I would ever get to fulfil my 2-year-long goal of reintegrating into Dutch society. I had a golden opportunity, one that only comes every four years (We don't talk about 2002), to really be Dutch. Every goal we scored, I was happy beyond recognition. And every win Holland came away with, I recognised the magnitude of the opportunity for me. And every day during that one month period, whether watching football, or talking about it with friends or co-workers or random customers, or just looking around and seeing entire sections of city decorated in Oron-yeh like the 11th plague, I really was thankful that I was in Holland. Every win in the knockout phase seemed like a wonderful gift to me, letting the experience go on for even longer. I never imagined that we would really have a chance to win for fear of letting the World Cup turn into a disappointment, but then, we made it to the finals.

So we didn't win. I know I should not be disappointed. We did fantastically to make it this far. But once we made it to the finals, I thought about how wonderful it would be if we actually won. Just how amazing the atmosphere would be. I mean, more than 3/4 of the population watched the finals, and I am sure most of the other 1/4 would have wanted to be there, but someone has to make sure that the planes stay in the air. If we would win, I thought, maybe then I would truly know just what it means to be Dutch.

But we didn't win. And Holland has still yet to win a world cup. My only consolation is that, maybe no-one really knows what it is to be Dutch yet. And in the future, if Holland finally raises that trophy, I too will truly know how much it means to me.


These are some images of the party we had outside our place with a large flatscreen TV and a small grand-stand for the epic Holland vs. Uruguay match.






Actually, I lie. Another consolation is that my other team, New Zealand, was the only team in the entire World Cup who went through the tournament undefeated.