Flobits

When the parents get someone (i.e. grandma)  to baby sit their child, two deep thoughts penetrate their minds. The first one is how could they make themselves scarce together and the second one is how to maximise that, to avoid any forms of dead times. Needless to say, at least one day off is compulsory and it should be used to go to the land no nappy, no toy under 19.99 euros that goes on and on and could drive a monk crazy, and so forth and so forth. In short, one should go to a place of utter serenity and complete oblivion. And, for the utter oblivion and complete serenity, nothing beats a whole, full, entire day at the sauna. For those who are not familiar to the Dutch way of sauna-ing, allow me a very short introduction. A sauna is an umbrella term for a place that comprises a few saunas (yes, I know you got that, but lemme go further). It's not only saunas (or steam/Turkish baths), there are lots of small pools, hot, warm, cold, damn cold, whirling, salty or not, etc, in wh...

Do you remember the good old times when the market was teeming with counterfeit products that looked the same and sometimes also functioned the same as the original ones? When you could get some "original" Abibas trainers or a Panasoanic cassette player (yes, it was a time when the music came on cassettes that could be rewound with a pencil, but that's another story).  I personally remember having got a coffee grinder, Mounilex, and not being able to tell the fake, not even when reading the name. For weeks I kept reading Moulinex on it. And it was so easy to have it wrong: the same kind-of-hand-written font, the original brand in my head and, not least, the quality of the ground coffee. Truth be told, I wasn't any less happy when I found out the counterfeit, for two big and fat reasons: first, it ground the coffee properly without problems and second, I didn't know any better, I'd never had a genuine Moulinex grinder to compare mine against.  Happiness unalter...

This post is not to be read by pregnant-with-first-child women, nor by women who'd think having another baby. It also goes without saying that any man who'd consider parenting in the near, medium, or far future should look away, too.  "What makes them tick?" - This is one of the numerous imponderable questions that come around us. Sure, normally "them" is replaced by "women" but life has taught me to seize any opportunity to shut up, so I won't take that path. Thus: women - far too complicated and dangerous; men - we have one desire, one sentence could easily describe it, not worth debating. However, what I've discovered is what toddlers want and cherish the most. What is that precious thing that they will fight to the death for when you try to take it away from them? Is that a toy? Is that food? Maybe the TV? None of the above. What they really really really have a hard time to part with is .... shit. And I do not mean this as an umbre...