Dulfer's DUM DUM

He who thinks he can conclude from former Dum Dum’s, that the sanctimonious ones among us only move within that hypocritical jazz-crowd that would like to guard Amsterdam for strange influences, must feel cheated, because even at the Amsterdam public transport company (GVB) you can find people that can be accused of this kind of behavior and opinions.

That at least was the experience of a talented young saxophonist who, on his way home from an evening at the Bimhuis (of course), fell asleep in the infamous night-bus of Amsterdam. Arrived at the end of the line, he was woken-up by the driver, only to find out – to his great fright – that his beloved and valuable tenor-sax (Selmer Mark 6) had disappeared from the seat next to him.

Panic all around of course, because such an instrument is irreplaceable and comparable to a beloved family-member.
The driver on duty was willingly helpful to search underneath the seats for the vanished instrument, but soon started a tirade – often heard in GVB-circles – about stealing junkies, pickpockets from Suriname and other criminal foreigners that endanger public transport, creating lots of personnel with huge stress-levels, things that can only be diminished by the unique combination of accompanying armed marines, (even) higher salaries, and a tax-free danger-bonus for the drivers.

Even after days of searching the city in the most dubious places he did not recover the saxophone, neither did phone-calls to colleagues, nor the placing of a desperate ad in the papers. The saxophone was gone and it stayed gone.
Until after about a year a repair-man blandly was offered the saxophone for repair by an employee of the Amsterdam GVB who, after he was told that the instrument was stolen, told - with a flushed-red face (probably stress-related) - that he wasn’t the owner, but brought the instrument in for a colleague, who’s name he couldn’t recollect.

The shrewd repair-man held on to the sax and after telling the man it would be advisable to find out that name, the man disappeared with a speed that certainly is not common for the Amsterdam public transport. He did phone the next day with the announcement he had no business with the saxophone and that he couldn’t find his “colleague”. The owner of the saxophone couldn’t care less about all that. He recovered his saxophone, that was the most important thing.

And what about that bad memory of the GVB-driver? Oh well, that of course was caused by all the stress created by all those stealing junkies, pickpockets from Suriname and other criminal foreigners that endanger public transport.