Law Breaking and Other Swedish Shenanigans

The thing about triathlons is that it has totally changed my outlook on life. When I wake up I want to go running. When I overeat, I want to burn it off. When I'm mad, I workout my anger. And when I'm tipsy, well... At least I try to walk it off.

I'm in Sweden this week visiting my college roommate. She's getting married and I'm a bridesmaid. It's been a while since we've seen each other and of course the best way to celebrate our reunion was over a bottle of red wine. For me, three drinks is perfect. Everything is ridiculously funny and I laugh just a little too loud. Three drinks. Not four. Three (3).

I know my limit. It's not a secret and it's not like it ever changes. In fact, the bride and I were discussing that very fact on a bike ride earlier that day. Four drinks for me is like feeding a gremlin after midnight and then dousing it in water. "Never get it drunk," should be tattooed on my forehead. Fortunately, I'm in the company of one of my best friends in the world, and her soon to be husband which makes him like a newly adopted brother. Perhaps, after witnessing some of my escapades, he questions her choice in friends. And perhaps now he'll warn off his Swedish-model groomsmen to stay away from "crazy," (me). But he accepts me for who I am even if he doesn't find my shenanigans half as funny as his bride. His loss...

So, head spinning, trying to keep myself from vomiting in the soon-to-be newly-weds only bathroom, I decided fresh air and exercise was the solution to my problem. I took off into the backcountry of Malmo Sweden and went for a walk. On the lookout for a girl with a dragon tattoo, careful not to kick a hornet's nest or play with fire, I put on my tunes and felt surprisingly amazing. And oh my, is this Method Man on my iPod? As if I was walking through the 'hood in Detroit, I stuck my right arm out and put my first two fingers in the air, not to indicate a sign of peace but instead the sign of deuces (because apparently that's how I roll). I used my left hand to stir my imaginary turn tables while I kicked up my right leg and bounced up and down on my left. Seriously, that may sound like I actually did wind up in the middle of a hornet's nest and on fire, but I was stylin' (and you can't say anything different). I'm just not sure why the group of teenage girls who passed me at that exact moment on their bikes and stared at me like an escaped mental patient did not also realize that.

'Wait, come back!' I wanted to shout. 'That's just how we do in Detroit. I promise there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary going on here.'

Oh well. I'll never see them again...

I walked for 35 minutes more in that direction. I soaked in the scenery, the smell of northern Europe, the look of the broad-daylight sky at 2130 hours (I love that they use military time here). And I realized that while I was still pleasantly smitten, I had to use the bathroom and had not passed a single public restroom or (heaven forbid) porta-potty. I've always felt mildly repulsed by the fact that Lady-Gaga was born with (and kept) both a yahoo and yazoo. But for the first time I felt a glimmer of jealousy for her at my inability to pee standing up. Damn you Lady-Gaga and your hermaphrodite circus tricks.

People, I was drunk in a foreign country and I had to pee and I knew I wasn't going to make it. I had flashes of the Malmo drunk tank I would be thrown in and weighed my options between calling my parents to bail me out of jail in Sweden and an erupted gallbladder with weeks of recovery in the hospital. What would you do! I made a command decision and hit the bushes. My face flushed with embarrassment. I got pricked by a rattle-snake bush (a new breed of shrubbery planted by the Swedish police to ward off law breakers just like me). Forget the erupted gallbladder. My legs were on fire and I was about to be paralyzed and have my wonderful new running legs replaced with titanium stumps. Why, God, why did I have to have that fourth drink?

My brush with the law (I mean, I'm not sure, but I have to assume that public urination is illegal in Sweden) had really helped to sober me up. I was on my way back with a modicum of self respect left after my gremlinish behavior. And then it happened. Michael Jackson's Wanna Be Startin' Something came on my iPod. I looked around to make sure no one was there and started dancing in the middle of the sidewalk again. "Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma ma coo sa." I mean, basically you have no soul if you hear that and don't bust out some moves. So I pulled out a hybrid Native American rain dance and running man combo and added in a cross of an African fertility dance and the robot. Then, (and really, I can't make this stuff up), those teenage girls passed me again. With the look of fear and pity across their face I wanted to shout to them,

'Wait! In America we watch Glee where it is totally appropriate (if not encouraged) to break out in song and choreographed dance to express our inner most feelings through popular music. So you see, there's absolutely nothing wrong with what I was just doing. Did you hear me? Come baaaack!'

Instead, I shouted, "I'm Canadian!"

Hey, triathletes think fast on their feet.