Paska Peruna

I've been playing a lot of volleyball this summer, with a ragtag group of people at Wash Park. One of them is Finnish--a real Finn!--and I was pretty excited when I found that out. Still, I didn't rush over to him and immediately tell him that I used to live in Finland. I wanted to have time to talk about it and also...he's crazy hot, and its scary talking to people who have more muscles on their stomach than I do in my whole body.

Let me just take a moment to say that Finland is very dear to my whole family. We all four loved the time we spent living there and miss it sorely. We are fierce defenders of anything Finnish and I remember getting outraged at my mom when I was younger for pointing out that I am in fact American, not Finnish. There was a time when I thought in Finnish and had a heavy accent when I spoke English. That time is unfortunately long gone, but I like to think the language still lives dormant in me somewhere.

Last week after playing several of us went to a bar and The Finn and I ended up next to each other. The time had come for my big confession. After we had gotten settled I turned to The Finn and said "Guess where I used to live?"

He said "I have no idea...Venezuela?"

(What the fuck?)

Well, that threw me off.

I huffed and stuttered that no, why would I make him guess if that was the answer, of course that's not it, I used to live in FINLAND.

His face brightened just in the way I had been expecting. But then he started to talk about how great Finland is. He sounded like a travel agent, but what's more is that he wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. I kept trying to say "I know" or "you're preaching to the choir" but now it was like we were both speaking words that kept running into each other in midair, instead of filing out in the disciplined exchange that some people call conversation.

Then came the question I knew would come. "Do you speak any Finnish?"

Dammit.

I had to confess that I used to, but now I barely remember it, I can only say the most basic of phrases. "How are you?" "I'm a girl." The most sophisticated sentence that I can piece together right now is "The boy is red."

He wasn't going to let me off the hook though. He told me to just say something in Finnish, anything.

He stared at me expectantly; intensely. My mind went completely blank and even the few introductory phrases I used to rely on slipped out of my brain. I opened and then closed my mouth. We stared at each other. There was only one phrase left that I would never ever forget, but it was sort of abnormal. This was getting awkward. Finally I sat up straight and looked him in the eye and said in Finnish,

"Shit potato."

Its what my sister and I used to call each other when we were fighting.

And do you know, he didn't even laugh? Didn't even crack a smile? How is that even possible. If someone came up to me and those were the only English words he knew, I'd laugh until I cried. I guess its true what they say after all. Finns have no sense of humor.