Toilet bowl
The Dutch consulate in Atlanta is situated in the brand new office park at Glenlake Park. By entering, you're greeted by a beautiful marble lobby, reception desk and REAL ART. “Wow”, went through my head, as the TGV elevator zoomed at ridiculous speed upstairs, where I was going to renew my passport.
Once upstairs, the Dutch Consulate proved to be no bigger than an average sized bathroom. As a matter of fact, it was exactly as big as the broom closet next door. You couldn’t even enter the actual consulate, it being, like the Better Snack Bar, more like a take-away window. The Consul’s wife, who runs the place and whose name is Knaak for Gods sake, opened the little window, after my hesitating knock on the glass. You could see that behind her there was just about enough space for an tired poster, showing cheese and tulip, while Mrs Knaak herself had to hunch under our national tricolor, which would otherwise continuously swipe her red hair. I informed her of the reason for my being there, in the meantime wondering if it was really possible for this service to be provided, passports being such official documents and all. But no sweat, on this post stamp sized Dutch Territory, anything was possible, even political asylum! No need to say I’d rather shoot myself than seek freedom in this place, but I thought I’d better not mention that to her.
While Mrs Knaak was checking my photographs with a ruler, her bare feet were making photocopies of my papers. I tried to make some small talk and I told her what a lovely place she had. “Oh, dear Mrs Allerpamstliefste, I do not actually live here”, she replied with a definite rich people accent, “this is merely my office address”. I was relieved for the Knaak couple, because for the life of me, I could not imagine fun receptions with herring and jenever within the walls of this office!
Our adventure came to an end. While I collected my receipt and change and still in the middle of wishing her a nice day, I saw out of the corner of my eye that all this time, she had been sitting on a needlepointed pillow on a toilet bowl.
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