Today I made four significant phone calls.
PHONE CALL NUMBER ONE
Was to the police to report the placement of the mysterious Toyota Yaris with the open purse inside. Got a gruff-sounding officer on the phone who in no time had looked up the licence plate number and provided YT with both the name and address of the owner. Turned out it was a young girl who lived on a farm up in Borgarfjörður [about 2 hour drive north of here], the police officer said he would try to get in touch with her by telephone, and when that was established we said goodbye and hung up.
PHONE CALL NUMBER TWO
Was to the cinema where we watched the Danish flick last night. I failed to mention in my glowing report that one of the speakers in the theatre was on the fritz so it sounded like a helicopter was flying overhead in the movie every few seconds. Despite being a complainer par excellence, YT would probably have given this one a pass except for one Significant Factor: we plan on seeing more movies that may or may not be in that particular cinema and I certainly would not want helicopter sounds invading each one [a Danish contemporary flick might support helicopters; The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino most certainly would not]. In any case, YT delivered her complaint; the movie man was most humbly apologetic and offered YT comps for our next film outing. At which YT praised movie man’s PR skills and he thanked YT profusely for alerting him to the wayward speaker, and at that point we said goodbye and hung up.
PHONE CALL NUMBER THREE
Was to the labour union that AAH belongs to, in order to ask how long her termination notice will have to be for her bakery job. Did I not predict this? I did. Getting up at the crack of dawn on the weekends is just not one of AAH’s strong points. And neither is working with rude bakers whose hands tend to land on or near her ass with alarming frequency.
PHONE CALL NUMBER FOUR
Was to the police officer again because I was dying to know what had transpired with the open-purse girl and the Yaris. By that time it had disappeared, you see. [The Yaris.] The gruff officer chuckled and launched into a story: he’d got hold of the girl’s father. “She’s just young, you know, just got her licence and she was driving around on Friday when the weather hit. Had summer tires on. Called her father in a panic; she couldn’t control the car, – did I mention she just got her licence? So her father told her to just park the car anywhere, just park it, and get herself home on the bus – she lives in town, even though her legal residence is in Borgarfjörður. So she just parked the car basically where she found an empty piece of pavement and it sat there all weekend. Her father just came to pick it up.’
Aww, kinda heartwarming, you have to admit. I just hope her father tells her to park it on a piece of pavement where it won’t be in anybody’s way next time. And to take her purse with her.
MEANWHILE, WE HAD MORE WIND…
… and it was one of those character-building Icelandic days where you have to struggle with your head down, just push up against adversity, push through the resistance, don’t let it stop you. I swear, I think the wind is solely responsible for the amazing tenacity of the Icelandic nation. Temps currently a balmy 2°C and sunrise on this last day of October was 09.08 and sunset at 17.14.