sometimes I get weird impulses. an idea pops into my head and it sounds fantastic in the moment. but later: not so much. usually when I get one of these impulses I find it hard to let go until I’ve tried it out. the “incident” which took place last week was a direct result of this.

I was meeting T in Malmö and it was a nice day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and I’d just bought a new pair of shoes. as we were walking from the Triangle I said “it’s a nice day, why don’t we rent a paddleboat?” (something I've wanted to do for quite some time) with no clue what’s in store for her T says yes and we make our way to the canal and rent a boat for an hour and a half. we then decide to paddle towards the library. as we float along we spot cute guys, even cuter ducklings and, after passing a bridge in the making, a bike. a bike which is half way down in the water. naturally (did you really expect anything else?) I want to check it out and we do. next thing you know we’ve decided to save the poor bike from the horrible fate of drowning. T jumps over to land and pulls it up while I try to hold the boat steady ashore. not the easiest thing to do when you’re laughing and photographing at the same time.


voila. she succeeds and climbs back into the boat where we decide to ask the police what we should do with our new friend. but first is first and we have about an hour left of paddling to do. so we paddle along enjoying the weather and the calmness that floating on water creates. we return the boat to the renters and start to think about what to do next. eat or go to the police? I voted for the police/bike combo. so that’s what we do.
when we arrive at the bike we realise that where we successfully pulled the bike up, was actually a construction site. which creates a new problem. are we allowed to go in there to get the bike? after spending about 30 minutes on the phone we’re told to take the bike to the station at Davidshall. so we did. to bad the station wasn’t open. T spends another 40 minutes on the phone, trying to find someone who will take the bike from us.
at last the station on Drottninggatan agrees to take the bike mainly because no one else will. so we walk and walk and walk (you see where I’m going with this, right?) and walk some more. hungry and tired we arrive and finally the bike is gone. and we completed our mission: doing what we can to return the bike to it’s rightful owner.

what started out as an adventure, with an act of humanity in the middle, ended with a question. is it worth trying to be a good citizen when it’s obviously not encouraged by the community we live in? should it be this hard and time consuming, about 2hrs, to drop of a found, possibly stolen, object to the police? I don't know. I just hope that if my bike gets stolen (again) and someone finds it that they will take the time to turn it over to the police (again).

btw I was accepted to the Creative Writing course in the fall. mah here I come. again =)