My device. This means today that I put on a celebratory outfit, pocket the bottle of cologne, and then leave - first to my mother, who - thanks to the Creator - is still with us.

I already sprinkled my wife and mother-in-law with rose water in the morning, followed by my daughter and two granddaughters in the afternoon.

I'm getting ready and I stop for a moment in front of the mirror, wondering if my tie has slipped to one side or if my collar is creased. I look into that crazy mirror a few times a year, always when I have to - or it's appropriate - to dress up for some festive occasion. What should I look at myself next time?

I look in the mirror - and suddenly I see myself as a little boy again. My good father is standing behind me, checking whether I am outwardly ready for the sprinkler tour. Because it was a real tour, we visited the relatives and even my father's friends one by one, if we hadn't done it, some family would still be offended. After all, tradition demanded that no one be left out of the sprinkling - sorry, sprinkling. While we didn't have a car, we traveled on foot or by tram, but besides us, many other fathers with their sons, apparently they also went on a sprinkling tour. Although we lived in Budapest, we never had rural relatives, this beautiful custom has become somewhat urbanized. After all, in an apartment on the second floor of an apartment building, one cannot pour a bucket of water down the neck of the housewife or her daughters...

It was a long time ago. it wasn't even true. And now here, in front of the mirror, I'm racking my brain over where has this beautiful tradition gone? Because there is no doubt that he almost disappeared without a trace. As I drive through the village - thanks to the Creator, I no longer live in the mental hospital known as the capital -, I hardly see little boys who, holding their father's hand and dressed in festive clothes, are trying to go somewhere where girls and women are waiting for them.

Where have the young men gone, where are the fathers, why is it not important for them to water the "withering" ladies? Where did the withering of the habit of sprinkling begin?

Maybe there, where nonsense appeared instead of nice sprinkle poems. "The plow plowed a new furrow, comrade, may I water?" - said those who kept the custom, but probably only so that they could send in a few "hospitable partners" so that the detoxifier would not be far from the third or fourth family. Or, when it became cool to get a red egg, the slobbers were more "driven by money". Maybe when it became fashionable to protest cologne because "my hair will stink." Because washing in the evening is tough.

Now, on the one hand, who wants to host pub crawlers, on the other hand, who wants to be in an awkward situation when the lady refuses to water?

Then there was the weekend winter, more and more people traveled there, and the sprinkler rang in vain, but there was no one to open the door for him.

Gradually, the fathers gave up taking their sons to water, and the mothers stopped taking waterers. The young people didn't see the example, they didn't learn this tradition, or if there were very few among them who still kept it, they started to think of it as a miracle bug, a pitiful eccentric. Is it any wonder that even the one who kept it until then abandoned this habit out of shame?

Of course, the matter is not that simple, the reasons listed above are just small crumbs, small building blocks of the downsizing of the beautiful tradition. A thousand little things made the development of the mood against watering to the extreme, until we reached the point that this habit "doesn't suit the modern man" anymore.

In the dangerous acceleration of the process, the lion's share goes to the blessed and cursed Internet, the so-called social network, in which there is nothing social. Because many people use it (and abuse its possibilities), it remains as individual as my little finger.

Virtual space, with virtual actors. We don't talk anymore, we just text, maybe e-mail. Rarely, too, because there you have to - or should - write more than one-word messages or an emoticon. That's why we talk on the phone. It doesn't even occur to us that the mobile phone can be used, for example, to make phone calls, so that we can at least hear the partner's voice, infer his feelings from it, and exchange thoughts. Or, God forbid, let's see each other - even if it's modern technology, we could at least use this advantage. But no, because then we would have to talk, we would have to exchange ideas, but today we don't exchange, instead we reveal, not really waiting for an answer. Of course, all this from home, because it's convenient.

Going on a sprinkler tour is not convenient. So they don't even go - not even in the more urban villages.

You guys don't even know what you're missing out on. Lovely moments, loving hours, friendships, that is, many, many human feelings. I'm sorry for you - but I'll leave the computer and the mirror here anyway.

Girls and women who wither but blossom after being watered are waiting. You just have to wait for the next curse that will be born sooner or later - the virtual sprinkler program, with which you can spray virtual cologne on the virtual heads of virtual ladies. It will be the brave new world for you.

Author: Jr. György Tóth

(Caption image: YouTube screenshot )