Almost Dead

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years and worked behind the scenes on television programs such as MasterChef, de Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too reluctant to set something on fire. Every week on FavorFlav, Lotje vents about what keeps her occupied. This time: the risks of modern life.

Think about nice things. That always works. Your birthday, for example, that’s always a good one. Just like when you were little. What do you want to eat on your birthday? What presents do you want? Keep breathing. Through your stomach. My birthday. Birthday, day of birth, born, life, death, grave, buried. Back to square one. Doesn’t work. Something else, then. Your new pizza stone. Pizza stone, pizza, Italy, stone, quarry, marble, gravestone, coffin. Nothing works. I’m trapped. I don’t want this. I can’t do this. How could I have been so stupid… So stupid to book a room in a capsule hotel.

A Little Scary

A few hours earlier, I check in effortlessly at a computer and also receive the wristband for my room, room 302. When I step out of the elevator, I run into a wall. Not a real wall, but one made of warm, old air. It’s quite a bit warm here in the corridor of the capsule hotel on the third floor, in summer, at half past one at night. You know those storage facilities with units with roll-up doors, where you can temporarily store your belongings? That’s what it most resembles. All storage spaces, with numbers on the doors. Except that sleeping people are stored here. A little scary, really.

Modern Little Things

In the square metre where I can still stand upright in 302, I undress and crawl (literally) into bed. The ceiling is close by. Very close by. Too close by. There are two tiny windows with a few rickety blinds in front of them, through which you can see the other capsules and the permanently brightly lit corridor. I push the blinds shut (otherwise everyone can see me lying there), pull the synthetic duvet over me and try to pretend that nothing is wrong. As if I’m simply spending the night very relaxed in a crazy, hip, modern hotel room in a world city, quite fun and something different for once, and you have to be open to it, right, the crazy modern little things that come your way.

Zoo

Half an hour later, I turn the light back on. Slightly panicked, I download the hotel app, which an enthusiastic sticker on the wall tells me about. Maybe there’s air conditioning in the app? A fan? A helpline? A zen meditation? None of the above. The Euromast is on it. The zoo. Light off again. An hour and a half and many claustrophobic thoughts later, I put on the shiny polyester kimono hanging from the tiny bit of wall. I walk through the stuffy corridors, over grimy carpet, barefoot, to the toilet. No toilet paper in the toilet. There is music. Stupid.

Rubber

Back in my grave, I try to get some oxygen in by wedging one of my Vans between the door and its frame. After a few restless minutes with a sliver of oxygen, I quickly pull it away when I hear voices in the corridor. The rubber of the door leaves a black streak on the white canvas of my shoe. I give up hope of sleeping and desperately try to watch Netflix. The Wi-Fi only works occasionally, and during the pauses in my episode of Hyper Hardboiled Gourmet Report, I see flashes in my mind of films in which people are buried alive or slid into a stainless-steel wall with a label attached to their toe.

At half past seven, I finally fall asleep, exhausted. At half past eight, the alarm goes off. The shower isn’t particularly clean and the foam is called something with Karma in it, but I can stand upright in it.

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