My friend Peter, (Dizzyhead on VT) sent this. Its just a generalization but it made me smile and many of the statements remind me of some of my favorite people in the world !
I read this in a very positive light and took it with a grain of salt. I hope its not offensive to anyone. Some of my best friends in the world are Swedish :-)
What is a Swede?
A Swede is tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and wears a wooly hat in the winter. By
nature he is shy, reserved, serious, industrous, and finds it hard to laugh at
himself. He is also a creature of habit and every morning gets up at 5.30 to
give himself enough time to read the morning newspaper before going to work.
Since work does not usually start until 8 o?clock, this can only imply that a
Swede is also a slow reader.
Apart from himself, his chief interests are money, his job, his home,
ice-hockey, and his family (in that order). He also loves animals ? especially
dogs ? and spends hours cycling through the town dragging a huge and ferocious
German Shepherd behind him on a leash.
A Swede is usually punctual, honest, reliable, clean, has his own teeth, and is
law-abiding. Evidence of the latter is particularly noticeable at pedestrian
crossings. No matter what the weather is like, a Swede would rather get soaked
to the skin than cross an empty street when a red light is showing. Similarly,
he always wears a seat belt, never drinks and drives, always has a television
licence, usually hands in his tax-return on time, invariably has a plastic bag
in his pocket when he walks his dog, and never has a bath after 10 o?clock.
A Swede is also very cautious and rarely does anything on impulse (except
perhaps sneeze). To him, all decisions are a matter of life and death. Take a
simple matter like buying cheese, for example. A Swede may try at least ten
different sorts of cheeses before finally deciding to buy twenty grammes of
Brie. It is the same sense of caution that prevents him from plunging into
marriage straight away. Instead, he lives with a woman first, has one or two
children, then ? if all seems well ? asks her to marry him.
With reference to marriage, a Swede is quite unlike most European men. Anything
a housewife can do, he can do better ? from cooking to sewing on buttons. In
fact, everything in the home (apart from breast-feeding) is shared.
A Swede also likes to think he is well informed and spends hours finding out all
he can about such things as nuclear power, the Third World, pollution, South
Africa, the sexual habits of the centipede, etc. while at the same time paying
little attention to unimportant matters - such as the name of his neighbor or
whether certain types of beer should be banned or not.
Most Swedes as fanatics when it comes to keeping fit and regularly spend their
weekends running through the nearest forest or cycling for hours in the cellar
on a bicycle fixed to the floor. With his health in mind, he has also given up
smoking, sugar, drinking coffee in the evenings, going to bed after 10 o?clock,
and mixing with strangers.
But perhaps the greatest thing about a Swede is his sense of equality ? of
everyone being the same as everyone else. To help this, most Swedes have the
same surnames ? Svensson, Nilsson, or Persson ? earn the same amount of money
after tax, have the same taste in furniture, dress alike, think alike, drive a
Volvo, and go to Majorca or Kreta in the summer.
A Swede also refuses to admit that he is prejudiced in any way.
Finally, a Swede loves the sun, hates queuing, gets a kick out of being first on
the bus, detests winter, enjoys sex, can?t stand gypsies, believes what the
National Social Board of Health and Welfare tells him, doesn?t believe in God,
worships Ingemar Stenmark, only gets drunk when he drinks, is patriotic (wears
Swedish flag underwear), visits the off-licence twice a week, visits his parents
at Christmas, goes to English classes, and, inevitably, is deeply offended by an
article such as this. |
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