Nothing ever happens...

We live in a relatively quiet neighborhood in the small, green university town of Enschede. I spent most of my days, when not working part-time or at Dutch school, in our apartment where nothing exciting ever happens…until I left. I got a job in Amsterdam and rent a room there during the week (as the commute is unbearable). P, who faithfully goes to the office every single day is forced to work at home one day because now that I’m gone, no one is there to let the gas guy in to read the meter. And on this one day, when the cosmic forces align, all hell breaks loose.

Flash back to several months ago…we’re driving home extremely late from visiting people who live a few hours away. It’s maybe 2 or 3 in the early morning. I’ve fallen asleep, slack-jawed, my forehead glued to the warm window. Somehow, my internal organs recognize the curve of the roundabout as we near our apartment building and I groggily open my eyes to see a weird, bluish light glowing from the window in the level above ours. It reminds me of the movie “Saving Grace”.

Flash forward to two weeks ago…P is visiting me in Amsterdam on his birthday weekend. He reports that the poor, crazy neighbor lady (she really does have extreme psychological issues --another story) was wailing and ringing her hands in the hallway on Friday evening, banging on our door. Apparently, there was a huge leak coming through her ceiling. P helps her by calling the housing company who calls the after-hours repairman, who comes, looks around a bit and after gauging the enormous amount of work this job will be, tells her to call back on Monday. That’s Dutch service for you. So, I presume she lived with buckets under the leak and called back on Monday.

Now, flash forward to Wednesday of last week; two days after we assume the repairman returned, the day P stays home to meet the meter man; and…the day the police raid our apartment building. That’s right, raid the building as in hurtling up the stairs to bust down the door of our upstairs neighbor, who actually only visits his home every once in a blue moon to check on the progress of his pot farm. That’s right, for years, the apartment above our crazy neighbor (it’s a building of six units), has been home to a pot-growing forest, replete with grow lamps and irrigation system…which I assume backed up or failed somehow and caused the leakage issue for our neighbor.

“But I thought marijuana was legal in the Netherlands?” True, but the Dutch with their befuddling laws only allow one adult to own five plants each. As there were not several tens of people populating the apartment above, one can only assume that the huge, leafy marijuana trees being hurled from the window above were contributing to someone's illegal income.

Of course, P was very serious when he called to report the day’s events. I couldn’t stop laughing at the whole, comical, movie-esque situation. However, in retrospect I would just like to point out that I can no longer be blamed for the outrageous spike in our annual electricity bill. :-)