MANIC MONDAY - BRANCH

Pookie was so proud of me that I have won the first price in the hat parade (see below) that she closed her eyes full of emotion and offered me a little present

In 1964 I had started to work for a company which made letters for subtitles on movies or for games. It was a very small company in Belgium but a branch from a big one in Germany. To present the new letters which were magnetic the German company had rented a stand at International Toy Fair Nürnberg, in Nürnberg, Germany for its Belgian branch.

My Boss decided to take me with him as decoration and interpretor, because his german was not so good and somebody had to talk to the clients at the stand.

So I kept the stand, showed our letter boxes and how it worked and we had quite some success. "We" is a generous word, because he always left me alone to shop for his wife or do other things and only showed up from time to time to check if I had made some contract prospections. Then he could say that he had found the customer and the Company would be proud of his work.

One day I again was alone and very hungry. I looked around if I could eat something so that nobody saw me eating, but the hall was fully packed. Finally I put my sandwich on the floor so that nobody could see it and from time to time I bent down to take a bite swallowed quickly and sat up again with a friendly innocent smile.

A few stands farer I heard people laughing and laughing and told myself that there must be something very funny going on and that's why probably nobody was at our stand. Suddenly I noticed that one of my nylon stockings was loose (there were no panties yet) and had to be fixed, otherwise, getting up I would have lost my stocking.

As the desk covered my legs from curious looks I pulled up my skirt and fixed the clip. This time a real explosion of loud laughter reached me. I became curious and as my stocking was fixed I walked over there to have a look and to find out why people were laughing so much and evidently were very amused.

When I approached the laughter even increased and I didn't understand a thing. And then I saw what had happened ! The subject they were all looking at was a video camera (very uncommun at that time) directed right to my stand and you could see everything even behind the desk ! Now I understood, everybody had seen me eating under the desk and also my uncovered legs while I fixed my stocking !

Today that's not very shocking anymore but in the 60ths people were still prude and it probably looked to them as if I had done a striptease behind my desk !

Now what should I do ? Getting a red face, be ashamed and run away ? That's not what I have done ! I laughed with all of them and admired the camera ! Unfortunately my boss didn't show up and scratched himself under the desk !

And here is the big surprise I have got yesterday !!!  Sir Arthur and Lady Pookie my companions on the Cruise

I got the first price for this hat, which I had worn for the Crazy hat Parade at our Cyber Cruise !!! And I was sooooo happy when I read : "Gattinas hat were choosen because of it’s both craziness AND creativity, no one can’t say that this hat not is like an artwork! I mean, this cruiser has a whole garden - or world - on her head! Just look at it - there is even a tree! I symbolize it with this crazy world cruise we’re doing too. "

But I want to thank especially Melli who finally had the idea with the hats. She took 20 hats on our cruise and they all were wonderful. So I have to share the honor with her and think she merits the first price for the hat IDEA !