temporarily backing off on Holland

I have often been tempted to buy a t-shirt that says fuck Holland. I hate that essay, as much as I might love those who've sent it to me. Jill Cornfield's response leaves me thoughtful, but without feeling as though the cheerful, adaptive temperament of the newly Hollanded has been given a swift, vicious kick in the ass. Although I'll admit that Cathy Marciniak comes damned close.

Thus the t-shirt. I'd get a stack, hand them out to friends, and we'd horrify the playground public, preferably while our kids do deeply Wrong Parenting things like climbing trees, or playing Redcoats vs. Colonial Militia.

bang! bang!

(pause, filled by nearby gasping about violence in play/kids running with big sticks)

hold on - I have to reload. I don't have a repeating rifle, you know.

(considering pause)

Oh, dang. My finger slipped on the trigger. Guess we have to have a running battle now...good thing my mom brought the really BIG medical kit today. (smirk)

It occurs to me that if I were in Holland, I'd be on vacation. And then - wait for it - I could go home. At home, presumably I would understand the language, the culture, and I wouldn't need to have meetings in which I explained us to others, or others explained us to me. At home, we'd be the norm, and an unthinking norm at that. No, wait - we are the norm at home. And there is no Holland, for us to either visit or leave.

More to the point, I reserve the right to bitch - not that our situation is remotely dire, nor is it tragic. But hey, bitchiness is all about the right to bear emotional arms, in case a target presents itself. I'm subtly modeling this with our virtual paintball cannon, mounted on the top of our little car, which the children use to express our, um, displeasure at the idiot who slammed on her brakes in the middle of a three lane merge on Rt 95 today. Twice.

Sploosh! yelled the Toddles. I got her with bright yellow.

Hmmm, said the Eldest. I wonder if we could use a robotic device to fill her car with bubbles? Maybe by drilling a small hole into the roof of her car, after sploooshing her with bubble stuff - and oh - programming a robot to blow air into bubble liquid?

Sometimes, you just have to do it.

So, fuck Holland. I can see it now, in a nice thick cotton, non-blinding white with a slim, but discreetly rounded lower-case font. Dark green, I think, with an ironic, minimalist tulip somewhere.

But given the timing, I think I won't. Not until after the Spain-Netherlands match, anyway.