Another issue of Truckin’ 100% hygienically proved to be the best relief in combating your bad breath. In this issue, even, it seems as though Pauly tags me by writing a story of Sven, the pickle picker from West Norway. Either this story was written on large amounts of synthetic stimuli, or it was a breathtaking piece of trial & error in trying to reduce the Homo Norvegicus to petty Texans. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to get in a pickle. (WAS THAT PUN INTENDED OR WHAT?!) But there must be some cryptographic message here I’m not getting.
Why West Norway? West Norway as in Maine? What’s the research here? Brothel in Sandnes? Can’t say I know any. And what kind of Scandinavian name is Maeve? According to the Central bureau of statistics, there are five (5) women in the entire country with that name. Hardly discreet. And hardly true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. He writes nothing about his own piece to reveal more insight, so you’re better off just reading it yourself. And all the other ones too! Pauly writes:
The July edition of Truckin’ is late but it’s definitely worth the two week delay. Betty Underground is back with one of her sultry stories of living the hard like in L.A. in the 1990s. Johnny Hughes goes back, way back, to his days in the Boy Scouts with his contribution this month. I’m honored and pleased that Milton T. Burton shared another one of his fantastic short stories. I’m also excited to announce the debut of Broseph. I have a feeling that we’ll be reading more from him in the future.
Trading Pickles by Paul McGuire
Sven worked in the largest pickle factory in Western Norway. It was a dreary town, but Sven’s options were limited since he had a terrible habit of holding a steady jobs. In the four and a half years since he graduated from university, he held no less than 76 jobs. All of them had something in common… he was fired from all 76…
Learning to Steal in the Boy Scouts of America by Johnny Hughes
We had a code similar to the Boy Scout code in some ways. There was no stealing from the mom and pop grocery stores that were on every other corner. No stealing from houses. No vandalism. And as I said, we did not steal while in our Boy Scout uniforms…
Yellow No. 2 by Betty Underground
He had pulled the mirror and the little box from the coffee table shelf and was cutting and lining up the next round. It was the 90s in Los Angeles. We had fallen into the alteration that cocaine had provided for our creative minds. Neither of us addicted to the drug, but walking a fine line of destruction to our relationship. Being almost unable to communicate with each other without it…
The Grays by Milton T. Burton
We froze and they smirked, their bright, gleeful eyes drinking in our fear. Then two of them pulled knives. Large knives. I put my arm around my daughter and drew her close. Cozart was calm beside me but I could hear him whispering a prayer in what sounded like Latin. Old habits die hard, I guess…
Justin Masterson by Broseph
The game was interesting enough, but I needed more excitement. I noticed two young ladies standing on the rail near us, decked out in Bosox regalia and holding a bottle of sun screen. About my age, they were attractive and fit the profile of girls I would normally bone sober…
Thanks for the plug! I decided to set this in Norway instead of Minnesota. Sounds better, right?
Too American to be Norwegian, but otherwise it’s an exotic piece of pickle. I mean literature.
I think the only place that COULD have worked was Norway. You’re oil-based social welfare system is second to none! Let’s face it Sigg3, there ain’t no way anybody else in the world skates on the good will of society for that long, unless it’s Europe and maybe more pointedly Norway. In the rest of the world, if you don’t earn your keep, you’re out on your ass. Drug money? We get it the old fashioned way, through robbery and mayhem. :-)
Our fellow in this story didn’t have the chops for robbery or mayhem. State funded pension has got to be his fall back – that and his supplementary shit jobs.
A detail that did seem out of place was the cars. From my experiences living in Spain (and travelling in Switzerland, Germany, and France) people got to work on either rail or bus. At my old company, if somebody had a car, we crammed as many people in as we could. The parking lot, if there was one, held exactly five cars and those that drove were a rarity. No, bus and train were awesome and more than sufficient.
Frankly, my attitude changed toward cars, and I began to see them as a nuisance rather than a convenience. Here’s the best example: At the festival of San Sebastión (in the Basque Country of Spain) you’d take the bus to the celebration, drink your ass off, have fun, and then stumble back onto a bus that leaves you at your door. You only had to remember to pull the stop cord, or you’d end up in Oiartzun or Irun. No cars meant no drunk driving. Awesome. It was like having your parents cart your drunk ass around all night.
Still, I guess after all that, the only question that remains is: Do you guys actually eat pickles in Norway?
My initial reply to the pickle was no, but we do have something called ‘sylteagurk’, which literally means pickle-cucumber, and is eaten in slices.
Whats more is that the cucumbers of Norway (and Scandinavia) are not allowed to grow straight BY LAW since 1927, adopted by the EU in 1988.
What I mean is, if he’s such a petty earner he would probably be on the unemployment payroll which only lasts for so long until NAV (the unemployment office) finds you a new job or educates you. Many applicants of NAV end up working there too, since they’re in lack of manpower since the last reform.
It is not normal to change jobs often either. We learned in school that many Americans change job and/or move every 4 years. Although this is a trend growing year by year as infrastructure and jobs spread to the farthest corner of our nation, again thanks to oil, it is far from abnormal to live/work the same place your entire life.
Also, you wouldn’t lose your job by sleeping with the boss’ daughter. Just won’t happen. There are very strict laws protecting the employees in Norway, and unless a person steals (and get caught) or leak classified info or something else on the same scale, he’s never gonna lose the job.
And let me just get this straight: only a few skate on the goodwill of others. We have historically low unemployment here, long before the oil arrived, and even in American folklore Norwegians are recognized as hard workers. Unemployment is more of a transition period, and the rate you get will over time be too little to sustain a “normal” lifestyle, thus motivating people to move on to new pasture. Unfortunately the low rate also applies to those who are disabled. So the system is good but not good enough.
You should read A Theory of Justice by Rawls. He’s an American (but) even further to the left of Norway. Not left as in leaning to communism, but a perfected social democracy developed to perfection. Funny read.