The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old [antikvár]

"TutsAA^, i O^^wAv^ JlOiS Another year, and I still don't like old people. Their Zimmer-frame shuffle, their unreasonable impatience, their endless complaints, their tea and biscuits, their bellyaching. Me? I am eighty-three years old. Great clouds of icing sugar were spilled a moment ago. Mrs Smit had put the plate of apple tartlets on a chair because she wanted to wipe down the table with a cloth. Along comes Mrs Voorthuizen, who inadvertently parks her enormous bottom right on top of the pastries. It wasn't until Mrs Smit began looking for the dish, to put it back, that someone came up with the idea of checking underneath Mrs Voorthuizen. When she stood up she had three tartlets stuck to her flowery behind. 'The apples match the pattern on your frock perfectly,' Evert remarked. I almost choked to death laughing. This brilliant start to the new year should have given rise to all-round hilarity, but instead led to forty-five minutes of carping about whose fault it was. I was glared at darkly from all sides, on account of having found it funny, apparently. And what did I do? I mumbled I was sorry.