Pale Face

I am writing this story in response to the column written by Marieke Palm in February of this year, entitled “Dirty!”. My title “Paleface” has nothing to do with the fact that the original inhabitants of North America, Redskins or Indians, called white people “Paleface”.

This “Pale Face” is about my walk with Siena & Giulia in the Molenbosch where the following “dirty” event took place before my eyes.

Here we go. On a beautiful summer day and while walking through the forest, I decide to walk my daily route counterclockwise. When you do this you discover that a forest where you have been walking for years suddenly looks completely different. The light falls differently, you look from a different angle and suddenly you notice things that have been there for years but that you have never seen before. Like this “lady” called “Pale Face”. 

Walking towards the water, where the bench with the memorial plaque “Julian and Ruben Love you 4-ever” and from which you have a beautiful view of the house Molenbosch, there are high bamboo bushes on the left and right. There between the bushes to the left of the bench I saw an enormous pale female face who apparently did not expect any oncoming traffic from this direction and from which just at that moment such an enormous brown boy, or in this case girl, rolled out. Full of disgust and thanking God that I had my dogs on a leash, I shouted “Madam, what a pale face you have!”. I saw that the body, of which that pale face was part, got startled, got a red face on the other side, jumped up and, pulling up her trousers but also forgetting to take her mortal sin with her, ran out of the forest. I am disgusted by these people who are too lazy to bury their mortal sin in the increasingly crowded forests and who leave behind-wiping tissues everywhere. By the way, did you know that dogs like to roll in the most disgusting and stinking things or even worse, eat them, but they can also make them very sick. To rid a dog of human feces is the most disgusting and sickening job for its owner. No, in the forest I would rather only see a beautiful bare bottom fungus like the one below.

TIP. During my military service, we had a folding pioneer shovel that you wore on your belt and with which you could dig a hole in the woods if you really had to do your business and then fill it up again. Or, like most dog owners, take poop bags with you and throw them in a trash can. This way, you won't make a fool of yourself and we won't have to look at your pale face.

Zeist is so beautiful and we are so lucky to live here. 

On behalf of this pale face, until the next walk. 

Arnie Della Rosa