Small Town Exotica

Some of my Swedish friends use to say that the stories I tell about The Small Town are just as exotic as the ones I told about Harare or Manila and this one is for me, one of them too. It is just hilarious!

Unfortunately I am not sure if it will work in English, but I will give it a try. Today I went out with some colleagues to celebrate a birthday with a couple of drinks. After a while the colleague who was sitting next to me wanted a small beer and asked for that. And here comes an explanation for the non-Swedes: the standard order for a draught beer at a Swedish bar is “en stor stark” which actually means “one big strong”. That will give you ca 40 cl of any random beer of the stronger class. It is the equivalent of ordering the house wine; it will most likely not be the best kind of beer, but the cheapest.

So my friend had had some of those but now felt she wanted a smaller one. When the very young and very inexperienced and maybe not too smart waitress brought the beer she asked “vem var det som ville ha en liten stor stark?” “who wanted the small big strong?” I spontaneously burst out laughing; I thought it was just so hilarious. Especially as the waitress did not react or seemed to see the missing logic of what she said. It can not have been that she did not hear it as I was not very subtle and my other colleagues also started laughing. After a while my colleague wanted another one and this time she was a bit hesitant how to order, as she did not want to start another laughing orgy. We were all paying attention and heard her ask for a “small beer”, but apparently the waitress noticed her hesitation and to confirm she asked; “en liten stor stark?” I think you can guess our reaction.

My colleagues jokingly blamed me for being an arrogant big city snobb, and were making jokes about us living like expats here and making fun of the locals, but they were laughing just as much. This is, however, quite much small town and the truth is, we are living quite much like expats and do not mingle with the locals!