A Bottle Post from Rotterdam

Yesterday I was standing at an electric car charging station in Rotterdam.

While my environmentally friendly vehicle was quenching its electrical thirst, I strolled along the nearby shore.

This is my way of passing the waiting time—not with frantic smartphone scrolling, but with little discovery tours.

A bottle?

What I then discovered among the reeds made me immediately pull out my phone: A lonely Johnnie Walker Red Label bottle, half-submerged in the murky water, surrounded by aquatic plants like an unexpected still life.

The red label strip glowed almost accusingly among the green. The Walking Man on the label seemed to have gotten stuck in the mud right in the middle of his proud stride. I took several photos from different angles, fascinated by this strange find.

Thoughts 💭

Now I'm sitting now in front of my laptop looking at the pictures. What the hell happened there? The scenarios in my head are tumbling over each other.

Case businessman

Perhaps a businessman in an electric Mercedes? Battery almost empty, the next appointment pressing in the calendar, the charging station painfully slow. And then the whisky in the glove compartment—as tempting as it was forbidden. A quick swig from the bottle to calm the nerves, then a hasty disposal when no one was looking. The modern version of liquid Valium for stressed executives.

Case pioneer

Or was it a Dutch electric car pioneer who finally lost patience after the thousandth "Charge faster, damn it!"? I can practically hear him: "Godverdomme, Willem! Thirty-five minutes for eighty percent?" The last sip of whisky as liquid consolation, the bottle as a projectile for pent-up frustration.

Case GenZ

Most likely, though, it seems to me a nighttime gathering of young people. The e-charging station as Generation Z's new meeting point. Romantic whispering under the gentle hum of the charging column. The bottle of Johnnie as liquid courage for the first date, carelessly left behind as a memento of an electrified night.

water nymph

I have to smile at the thought that this bottle now serves as home to a tiny water nymph. At night she slips out and lets the last drop of whisky dissolve on her tongue while dancing a slow waltz with the Walking Man on the label. Imagine: a waterproof nymph with a taste for Scottish spirits.

Irony

The irony of it all doesn't escape me. An environmentally friendly charging station next to a carelessly discarded glass bottle—the perfect symbol of our contradictory existence. With one hand we choose the electric car, with the other we throw bottles into the bushes. This strange human duality has always fascinated me.

The bottle looks oddly out of place and simultaneously as if it belongs exactly there. A glass monument to our presence in a world we're simultaneously trying to save and pollute.

My next photo from charging

Perhaps I'll photograph it again during the next charge. Let's see if it stays there or if an environmentally conscious soul removes it. Or if the nymph has moved on by then, in search of a bottle of single malt—one does treat oneself occasionally.

One thing's for sure: The next charging time will definitely not be boring. I now have a new pastime: whisky bottle spotting at e-charging stations. Who knows, maybe it'll become a viral trend on Web3 social media platforms and later even mass adoption in the old web2 world.

ProofOfPin

Someone left a sticker to mark this place

Fiction

Sure, all this fiction came from a e-driver while waiting some time to get energy into his car and that bottle.