Why it is annoying when you always have to explain that you celebrate Carnival

It was Sunday the eleventh of the eleventh. On that date, I briefly touch the South to consume my portion of carnival. A preview, for the real work around February-March. The people in Amsterdam and the surrounding areas don't understand that, because carnival has the label: un-cool.

I still see myself at the table among the editorial girls of Viva in Hoofddorp. Thank God my boss was from Limburg, all understanding, but the rest looked at me blankly. What are you going to do? Where? How-many-days-long? I'm going to carnival. In Bergen op Zoom. There, they throw the old floral curtains over their shoulders and sew hats full of flowers. Grandma sips a glass of Schrobbelèr, your little neighbor girl runs around the Grote Markt collecting glasses for the bartender in exchange for candies, and we dance along with the brass band that just comes in. You see all your friends again, because everyone comes back to celebrate it. I think it’s, apart from my vacation, maybe the best time of the year.

I declare myself an accident. Because carnival is all about drinking a lot, right? And cheating? And even more drinking? I do enjoy a good glass, by the way, I don’t sidestep, but carnival is more. Imagine your own all-time best party with friends ever and multiply that by five days and a few extra weekends before plus a loose evening in November. That’s carnival for me, or as they call it in Bergen op Zoom: vastenavend. Thank God I don’t have to dress up as Wonder Woman, but traditionally with a floral dress, long coat, and a decorated hat. Night after night you celebrate, you are together, it brings people together and creates sisterhood. You think of nothing else but celebrating together with live music, some dancing, and a refreshing drink. Laughing, releasing, singing, and dancing your feet off.

Damn, I’m explaining myself again. By the way, I had a solution for the problem, I thought. Just don’t talk about it. But then I came to the editorial office this morning and May didn’t know that I had taken my party hat out of the closet for eleven-eleven. No awareness, because May knows that I do carnival professionally. But it’s easier to keep it quiet, just do it; then you have nothing to explain. Only to an observant May, but she understands it somewhere in the distance anyway.