Chapter 36 - Home and wet

And we're back!

To celebrate our safe return and avoid too much cookery, before even going into our house, we decided to go and get Chinese takeaway food. That is: food developed by Chinese and Indonesian immigrants in the seventies based on what the average Dutch person finds palatable / not too exotic and can be concocted from locally sourced ingredients like ketchup, flavour enhancer, emulsifier, colouring agent and deep-fried pork. The general rule of thumb is that the two-person menu typically feeds at least four to six, depending on how hungry you are.

Because neither the bus nor our parents would deviate for my librarical / academical quest, we used the time waiting for our food to be prepared and opted for the next best thing: To feed the question into the AI research app. This was not really easy. The first attempt returned a 'Query too long.' message. The same thing happened after splitting it into separate queries for the two words. Just entering each of the words worked, but didn't ask the actual research question. In the end we compromised by just entering 'Is Eisenbahnknotenpunkt-hin-und-her-schieber used?'. The answer was 'Yes'.

It was only later (about three minutes) that I wondered whether my entering the actual word before the final question-format was enough reason to get a 'Yes' out of the AI. In order to eliminate things like confirmation bias I added the follow up question: 'How often?'

The answer, 'You used it four times in the last day', said it all really.

Carrying all the plastic bags with non-compostable plastic containers containing the food, it took us some coordinated effort to open the front door against the mountain of unopened mail, papers, advertising brochures and sample packages of instant soup, anti-dandruff shampoo and ladies sanitary napkins, for and some reason. I wonder what the dog across the road would have made of that. A big mess is what I think.

Fully stuffed with artificial everything, we decided to switch to Christmas mode and try to distribute the contents of the doormat-mountain. Robyn and I got an unexpectedly large stack of official-looking envelopes. Some were related to getting money to study and live, most were asking for money for similar reasons. There were also letters from the University. Robyn's to introduce the online environment and passcodes needed to get to know anything else, like when the actual studies would start, what you would have to pay in tuition fees (gasp!) and when the introduction camp would take place (plus what the introduction camp would cost, drinks not included). I got a heavy parcel that looked ancient and held a big rusty key and a clay tablet plus a short letter stating 'Be there!'

Dad looked over my shoulder to finally find out what study I was actually going to enrol in. I must say that Dad has recently become an expert level frowner. His voice didn't betray too much of his disappointment when he asked me what exactly I would learn in Medieval and Extraterrestrial Media Management. I told him to ask me again in four years time. Big chance he won't understand it then either. I had the presence of mind to cover the bit of the clay tablet detailing the initiation rites that I needed to prepare for. This might have been pointless. I guess Dad doesn't read cuneiform anyway.

Getting back to the mail, the Twins got to share the sample packages. They don't live here (yet?). They will stay here tonight though, because Mr. and Mrs. Micelli will return home tomorrow. Unfortunately they won't be sleeping in my room. (at least, not while I'm in it as well, which is probably for the best, given the apocalyptic state of my room). That's why we decided to postpone sleeping way past our parents' bedtime.

The next morning I woke up on the living room sofa, fully dressed and covered in Twins, with Dad leaning over me with an ominous frown. This had more to do with the state of the living room where the remains of dinner were nearly lost in a cover of crisp packages, empty soft drink bottles and slices of cucumber everywhere. (those were the result of our experiments on the lift capabilities of slices of cucumber. Result: They are not as stable as the common frisbee. Dipping them in mayonnaise does not improve the flight characteristics. It does act as a mess multiplier)

After some work with a broom and a bin-bag it was time to say goodbye to the Twins (for now).

The advantage of going on holiday with no spare clothes whatsoever is that you can just put your backpack in the closet for next year without the effort of unpacking. That's why I managed to get to the Library with plenty of time left before lunch. (Pizza!)

Entering the Library I noticed that Unicorn was not behind her desk. There was someone else instead. A sleek man with a slick black haircut and a three-piece black suit was busy punching numbers into the keypad of his slim titanium-shelled laptop. He held up one hand to stop me from interrupting him and to indicate I had to wait. Five minutes later he turned his intense gaze at me and said: 'I've been expecting you, Sparrowhawk', then following 'Unfortunately, Unicorn is otherwise engaged in some minor legal matters which go way above your pay grade, but which will probably reveal themselves in the international press in the coming years' (this pay grade thing makes sense, as I don't get paid). 'That is why, I will take over your fast-track introduction into Librarianship. For now.'

Did I mention the guy's unusually large canines? Now you know. I guessed pizza was out of the question now, so I decided to bring up my holiday assignments. These were swept aside as mere exercises to warm up for the real work, he said. I never imagined that I would be doing any real work for at least another four or five years, so this came as a bit of a shock.

Before leaving I spent some time deciphering my University entry letter to find out when and where I should 'Be there!' and about the initiation rites I mentioned before. (the advantage of a diary is that you can include things you learned later on, like what was written on the clay tablet. I didn't know what it said either when Dad was asking about my studies earlier on. Now I do).

Deep in thought and still hungry, I returned home to find Mom and Dad waiting for me. Apparently they had had a 'talk'. They wanted to know if everything was clear regarding my upcoming studies.

'Probably' was not the right answer.