THEIR NATURAL HABITAT

There are more dogs in this neighborhood than children. One very rarely sees people walking their children outside when one is, hypothetically, up and having a stroll with one's pipe at around six o'clock in the morning. No, not on a leash. Children, being a more advanced creature evolutionarily than many dogs, do not require leashes; there are cell phones to keep them from going up to strangers and biting them or sniffing their crotches.
On the way home I saw only four kiddiewinkies but seven dogs in my block.

Chinese parents, which in this neck of the woods are the dominant kind, garb their offspring in bright cheerful rain togs. Little ambulatory blobs of colour at the end of the block.
So that the wee munchkins stay mostly dry.

In a way I am insanely jealous of that. When I was small I did not have cheerful raingear. Foul weather clothing was dull grey or dark blue, and all of us probably looked rather industrial, like we were going off to the glue factory in the morning.
Boots? Black or dull green only.
Not magenta.

There is a little Dutch child in that flooded parking lot shown above, dressed to perfectly blend into his surroundings. That's why you can't see him. Neither can the wild animals.


Not shown: The pipe in the little tyke's mouth (pipesmoking is a recognized intangible cultural heritage of the Netherlands, and many natives are born with a fully lit briar in their mouth), or the banana for scale. It's there, though. Bananas are the only bright thing in the otherwise drab and rain-swept landscape of a Dutch childhood.
The glue factory is implied.




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