Sunday, August 28, 2011

I Got Schooled

Okay, this is a little embarassing but I'm going to tell you anyway because I think it illustrates something about the way we think about other cultures.  Something deep and important.  Like everything else on this blog, obvs.  So anyway, I was at Ikea on Saturday afternoon and was waiting in the loading zone for The Swede and Jamie to roll up in the Volvo and pick up me and my new favorite plastic and glass things when a dude parked his car next to me.  In the front seat sat a toddler and in the back was a sleeping baby.  I heard the toddler ask his father where he was going, to which the dad replied that he would be back in just a few minutes.  And then he left the kids alone in the car.  And I was like, "What!?  This would NEVER fly in America!" and proceeded to take a photo so that I could tell you all how safe parents feel leaving their kids alone in the car to go into Ikea in Sweden and how if you did this in the States you'd surely be arrested.  But then the dad came back to the car a few minutes later, as promised, with a sack of strawberries from the fruit stand RIGHT BEHIND me and a total of five steps from his car.  He had the car, and his kids, in full view the entire time he was gone.  The only weirdo around was me, the creep taking pictures of little kids in the Ikea parking lot.

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