Currently, in the Catholic parts of The Netherlands and Belgium and many places elsewhere Carnaval is going on. Traditionally with parades, usually existing of a bunch of trailers with huge polyester sculptures. Additionally completed with participants like marching brass bands, stilt walkers, and sometimes a unicylist on a tall giraffe - guided by a tiny chihuahua dog.
For my dog it was her “premiere”; her first paid gig. She’s still fine with that.
That’s simply because I never disclosed to her that walking next to a unicycle is the worst kind of animal cruelty on planet earth and beyond, according to a handful of Karins, out of an official estimated of 25,000 spectators.
Contrary to the MANY fashion-accessories-on-four-legs who never face outside, forced to doing their things on special mats, as walking the dog is too time-consuming, in the reality of such owners.
As a self-entitled unicycle trendwatcher, I spot that the circus stigma still sticks to the unicycle, and unleashes the beast in such self-entitled animal experts.
The other 24.995 spectators responded with a spontaneous smiles and joy.
When preparing for today’s job, I met fellow professional performers, who arrived late, as their trip was interrupted by an alcohol test.
Carnaval comes with mandatory alcohol abuse, but already at 10 AM… seems early to me.
I still hear the echo of my response: “in the 30 years I’m in possession of a driver’s license, I’d never-ever been stopped for such test”.
Half an hour later the parade departed, and I’m piloting my tall unicycle and tiny dog through the first corner of the street, when suddenly a police-officer is nearing me, a bit too fanatically, and uncomfortable near.
My previous encounter with police, last month, when giving cardiac resuscitation. Odd experience: feeling relieved while 8 police officers were running TOWARDS me. At this present moment I get exactly the opposite of that feeling, just from this single police officer. And guess what: she is presenting a breathalyzer.
Memo to reader: everything in the paragraphs hereafter took place in only few seconds.
First thing my brain is alarming to my consciousness mind, is she’s dangerously close,
right in front -and in line of the direction- of my wheel, even -or in particular- while idling.
Although she may be responsible for safety by her profession, so am I, and she now is intervening with my responsibility towards my surrounding, spectators, myself and especially my pet. Unacceptable for such pointless joke.
On second glance, her uniform/gun/com/gear/car all is too realistic to be costuming.
I cannot exactly spot a smile on her face (understatement).
All doubt whether she was joking is as suddenly gone.
Next emotion is being flabbergasted. Rapidly replaced by being bothered by such inappropriate moment for something like that, and especially her “approach”.
In Amsterdam we have longstanding silent agreements with police and other law-enforcement, that it’s “not allowed” to interrupt performances, and certainly not during collection of money. You do so before or after - never during.
But to drink and drive, a tall unicycle, on such a extreme slow speed, as the dog dictates our pace, in fact is double the speed of this terrible slow parade.
What the heck was she thinking? Was my riding too wobbly? Did that trigger her?
By Belgian law I’m not even a driver (“bestuurder”). Don’t even have a physical steering control (“een stuur”). Belgium has 3 official languages, and the Dutch version of the traffic law implicates it’s therefore impossible to be a driver.
For this same reason the law banning phones in traffic is inapplicable to unicyclists. I already proofed that, also in Belgium, be it silent (of their behalf - I was verbose), and without a real verdict in court in Bruxelles, so unclear which one was the winning argument in that case.
But here -vouching in her favor- I’m guiding a dog, making me a “geleider” in their national traffic law, which still isn’t EU harmonized.
Although, we also could debate the dog is guiding me. Would be legal from my point of view.
Public drunkenness in the worst case scenario - except for the fact I didn’t drink anything at all. Not exactly the greatest moment to consult an attorney on hypothetical options of defense. Plus; defending against what?
While I can only guess what indictment she has in mind, the officers mood-spiral increases from agitated mode to aggressive mode, and pretty rapidly also.
She’s simply incompetent. Unable to explain that her gadget with something that looks exactly like a mouthpiece, apparently isn’t a gadget with a mouthpiece.
Now explodes when I reach for it - because I’m moving back and forth, since she forced me to idle. Dismounting a tall unicycle at this spot is now impossible, since she blocks me, and neither allows me to back off.
I guess the police-academy burned a flow-schema inside her brain, which states to not allow me to hold it. By lack of a proper dialog it remains trail and error and puzzling.
My guess seems right, as holding her hand holding the gadget turns out to be permitted.
But still… she repeatingly hysterically forbids me to blow into it.
Immediately followed by a contradicting firm authoritative order that I “WILL BLOW IN IT NOW - OR ELSE I WILL DRAG YOU OFF”, I hear her scream now.
In the crowd I’m facing hundreds of faces, all as clueless as I am.
However, one clue I recognize: this type of screaming is a clear sign of weakness, lack of authority. People always say I always have problems with authority, but I think it’s the opposite: authority always has problems with me.
Usually in conflicts I feel confident when an opponent loses his/her calm, except with people having great power and responsibility.
Her screaming is signaling more like the opposite of the dominance she seems to desire.
It’s contributing to the surrealistic feeling I experiencing at this very moment.
I’m present, knowing I’m not dreaming. Still feel like being part of a movie, instead of a carnaval parade. Tending more towards fatal than festive.
Since she now introduced the option of violence, plus the fact that whoever beats the hardest slaps automatically has winning arguments to finish the conflict, I almost feel confident enough to accept her suggested challenge, to escape this impossible situation I’m locked into now.
Witnesses enough. Zero doubt that multiple cameras are capturing already.
And her colleaguas likely will have a less idiotic approach.
But instantly I realize that I’m now in Belgium, and this may be a very unwise assumption.
Still, I really don’t wish to involve my dog into this very “civil dialog” / nonsense, which is turning worse by the second.
So, in all honesty, with all good and serious intent to obedient comply to her ridiculous demanding … my brain simply cannot process her plain paradoxical instructions!
With such contradicting instructions, I’m left no other choice than to super-silly blow into the air into the direction towards her gadget.
In fear our encounter will escalate even further, I see no better -or any other- option than to do that, just to foolishly illustrate how crazy this got at this point.
But… to my huge surprise… her barking suddenly stops.
Followed by clear disappointment, I can read from her face, while she reads the display.
Then a tiny cranky notify that I seem dismissed from the scene.
As sudden it all started, as sudden it all ended.
At the start I was flabbergasted, at the end even more.
Turns out that ever since SARS‑CoV‑2 / AKA SARS‑CoV‑19 / AKA Covid-19 / AKA Corona / AKA Kung-Flu, the Belgian police are using their gadgets -let’s say- “creative”.
And -by now- needless to explain any further: in an extremely counter-intuitive way.
I need a couple of streets to process what just has happened, and recover myself.
And I know Carnaval has a religious ingredient, but my God! This police officer lacks any decent communication skills, except for contra-deescalating ones.
But she doesn’t lack any enthousiasm or motivation, so I wish a steep learning curve to her.
And if we would encounter each other next year, then let’s start from zero.
Alcohol checks are anyway an occasion where zero is the best score.
