A GOOD BUSINESS CELEBRATION

Pookie in her "red zone" When I first saw the word "celebrate" I thought that's a difficult one. Besides the traditional celebrations for birth, birthdays, engagements, weddings and maybe sometimes funerals, there is not much left to celebrate.

But then I remembered the celebration of a very good business deal.

At my first working place we made subtitles for movies. Special letters you could put together to make a phrase. The company consisted of my Boss, a secretary and myself.

When the international Toy fair in Nürnberg (Germany) took place he decided to open a booth there together with his German partner Josh. I had to come with him to translate into german, as a booth decoration and also to present the letters to eventual futur customers. The booth was small, but nice and we had quite a lot of success.

The last day both decided to celebrate the very good result they had made at this fair. For that they wanted to see the "red light zone" in Nürnberg. The question came up then, what to do with me ?? They asked me what I wanted to do and as I already was a very curious person, I said "I come with you" (I was 22 and it was in the 60th). They gave me a doubtful look, shrugged and then agreed.

As it was quite early to visit such a place they decided to go dancing first and we entered a dancing bar. The bar was all in red plush and gold with a more than dimmed light and therefore everybody looked good. I looked around saw people sitting on the red plush sofas or seats and then noticed that on each table there were a telephone. I was surprised. A telephone in the 60th was not a commun object available for everybody and here was one sitting on each table.

We sat down and the telephone started ringing. My boss took it and then handled it over to me. A guy was on the line and invited me to dance. I was so surprised that I looked at the phone as if he would step out of there in a minute. But then I heard the voice saying that he sat opposite my table and when I looked, there was a guy who waved at me. As he was quite handsome and looked clean (hygenically) I accepted and we danced. Of course I was a disappointment for him because I didn't want to give what he wanted he quickly returned me to my table. My boss and Josh had disappeared, but they had left a bottle of champagne on the table for our celebration. As I liked champagne very much I helped myself with pleasure and found the situation more and more exciting. When both came back, a little disappointed about their dancing results, we emptied the bottle and they decided to go now inside the red zone.

The problem was again my little self. Women were not allowed in. So they looked at me hoping I would say "take me home" but I was far too curious and wanted to come with them. After careful consideration they finally decided to hide me on the back seat of the car. The only thing I had to do was kneeling between the seats so that nobody could see me from outside, but I could look through the window.

No sooner said than done. I climbed in the car and they drove direction red zone. It was located in a very old and a little dirty looking area and suddenly we arrived at a wall. Here they told me that I had to hide now. Which I did. Peeping through the window I saw a line of houses with red neon signs which praised all kind of propositions and had funny names. I watched the "red zone" ladies, dressed or more undressed in narrow outfits, high healed and with big decoltées almost until the bellybutton. All hair colors and hair styles were represented and from skinny minnies to oversized elephants everything was available. Sometimes they discussed with a man and then disappeared behind the door of a house. What an awful profession, I thought, accepting all these man to earn money for living. The fats, balds, hairies, very young to very old, they all were represented.

As we drove very slowly so that we could see the most, suddenly a long curly haired blond with a red mini dress knocked at the window. Josh opened it and she put her head inside to offer her services and discuss the price. While I had a wonderful view on two pink mountains I listened to the conversation with great attention. I had shrinked myself to the size of a little mouse. I don't remember the price or anything else of the discussion and anyway they couldn't accept the kind proposition, because I was in the way, but anyway they just wanted to have a look. They were both married.

When we had enough of our sightseeing, we drove to the city center and continued to celebrate our business success. This was the first time I have seen a red zone in my life.