Home Wreckage

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Stabroek is a tiny town north of Antwerp, Belgium, not at all far from the Dutch border. A tiny town where probably everybody knows everybody. By coincidence, this is where I ended up celebrating my 30th birthday. Fair enough, I drag my course mates/friends to the local pub, in order to make the occasion count. Pub number one is a nice enough place. Not used to late night celebrations however, the staff very politely but also very obviously let us know that they want to go home. Finally we decide to take the hint and move on. Being such a small town, the nightlife in Stabroek is however very limited. In fact, the late night entertainment is limited to this pub that just closed on us, and a couple of other establishments. One of these other establishments in on the way back to where we stay. Had it been a vote among us whether to step inside or not, it would probably have been a vote in favor of walking straight by it. Since it is my birthday, I get to make the decision. With my “why not?” attitude I decide that we check it out. Seems like an ordinary venue; a bar disk, a small dance floor, some tables, and even a stage for performing artists. The crowd is mixed, young and old, girls and boys, probably a good representation of this little town (also probably amounting to half the population). The younger crowd enjoys the dance floor, while the more mature clientele explore what the bar has to offer. What the bar has to offer is mostly beer. For some of the customers, large amounts of beer. This excessive intake of alcoholic beverage leads to emotional outburst for one customer who apparently disagrees with his bar neighbor, with the result that they engage in a dispute. This dispute quickly turns quite physical and verbal. There is some pushing and waving of hands, and there is some shouting. As four foreigners, we act as neutral observers and are all wise enough to step aside and do nothing to interfere. After all, this is an away game, and for all that we know this might be a traditional occurrence here. From the reaction of the crowd, it probably is a common occurrence. Although - strangely enough - the place is well-lit, and everything going on is clearly visible to all, only the handful of people directly involved in the little fight act on it. The DJ continues to play his tunes, and the crowd continues what they were doing a minute ago without even taking notice. The drunken fighters are told to take it outside, and they obey without further ado. Personally I found did not find this little incident abnormally strange, and my friends were probably not traumatically harmed by it either. The very verbal Canadian representative of our little group did however in an instant come up with a name/expression/saying for this specific event: “Home Wreckage”. These “home wreckers” will probably never know that they were the origins of this phrase in my association of nightlife in Stabroek. For them, this quite undramatic and not very harmful “home wrecking” business might probably a weekly thing. For me though, it gave birth to a whole new expression…

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