Miss Bad Penny is living a penny-ante and penny-pinching life in the Netherlands

Wuppie, wuppie, wuppie...

The Netherlands has been in the grip of soccer fever lately. See that fuzzy little ball in the picture?? It is a "wuppie" produced by a local supermarket, Albert Heijn, to boost the Dutch soccer fever. You get a little wuppie for free after you have spent 15 euros at the supermarket. There are 4 kinds of wuppie - orange wuppie, white wuppie with red antennae and blue feet, blue wuppie with red antennae and light blue feet, and red wuppie with red antennae and blue feet (I don't need to tell you they resemble the Dutch flag and orange team, right??).

My favorite little wuppie is this white one but I do want to buy (3 wuppie coupons plus some cash) the big orange wuppie. Unfortunately there is also a "wuppie fever" in the Netherlands as the big wuppie sold out already. The supermarket is not ordering any more wuppies either because they are afraid World Cup will be over when the order comes in. Grrr. My coworker is showing off her three wuppies by displaying two of them on her desk and hanging one on the wall. Another Dutch coworker is all dressed up in orange and wearing a wuppie on his head. Yes, most Dutch people wear orange during World Cup and on the day when the Dutch team is playing.

The Dutch team is playing against Argentina tonight. When I talked to my friend today, I found out both our men are secretly praying that the Dutch team will lose tonight. It is said that tonight's game is not that important anyway as it only determines when the two teams are playing in the next round - if the Dutch team wins tonight, they are playing again on Saturday when our men are busy. My boyfriend and I are flying out this Saturday, need I say more?? And my friend and her man are having a short trip away this weekend, again need I say more?? As I told my friend, our men are so loyal to the Dutch team they have to betray them tonight.

[Update] It seems that the "wuppie fever" is still going strong. The big wuppie sold out at the supermarket already but they are still selling like hot cakes on the Net though a wuppie could cost more than 100 euros. My man also read in the paper that people broke in cars to steal not only the car audio system but also the fuzzy big wuppie. Some of my friends have taken out the car audio system to avoid their cars being broken into, maybe they should remove any wuppie-like items too...

posted by Miss Bad Penny at 15:52