The tax office
I was going to write something awful and ugly about my tedious dealings with the local tax office, the fact that they didn’t know what form I was applying for, the fact that they didn’t know what the right procedure for the darn paper was or how incredibly unable to understand words containing more than two syllables the woman that “helped” me was.
But instead, I’ll write about something that isn’t less aggravating but has more news value. A story about the little man.
When I first moved to the Netherlands, I lived in a street that also housed a Vietnamese family. They had a food cart that they would take to town, selling Vietnamese food. After a few months, they were “driven” from their usual stand by a larger food cart. They moved their cart to an obviously less interesting place and after a while the food cart disappeared completely.
Today, upon visiting the tax office, I noticed three small papers announcing the public sale of their household. There were three papers, one for the man, one for the woman and one for the cleaning business they apparently set up after the food cart went ouf of business. These people have kids. And I know they tried to make a living. I wonder what’s going to happen to them.
