Our plan to torment my father-in-law by rotating unfamiliar male voices for the outgoing message on our oddly-behaving answering machine fell apart late last week when it stopped working altogether, prompting Scandinavia''s most diligently informed consumer to begin researching its replacement.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Darling discovered we could get a decent cordless phone/answering machine combo for not much more than the price of the answering machine alone. And since we were still using an tethered-to-the-wall phone in The Batcave, it made sense to go that route. 

We ended up with this fancy Philips model, which appeals to the Swede's minimalist design sense. (Interpret that any way you want.)

The phone has a gazillion features that we'll probably never use, but the answering machine is simpler to operate than the old one. Each one of the buttons actually has an easily recognizable purpose!

It also has an optional generic automated outgoing message...but this one is a female voice rather than male, and we're trying to decide if this will drive Dr. Darling's Dad more or less crazy than the previous one.

Better yet, the outgoing message can be switched between 5 different languages; Swedish, English, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish. So even if my father-in-law finally figures it out, it ought to throw the telemarketers off our scent for awhile.

Work has been crazy for both of us lately...with me going in early (and skipping the gym to do so) and Dr. Darling having to stay late nearly every afternoon.  But by the middle of this week, the Swede was seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

Dr. Darling:  I was home at a reasonable hour today and didn't know what to do with myself.

Shazzer:  Now you've got some time to dedicate to your hobbies.

Dr. Darling: What hobbies?

Shazzer: Digital photography and single malt whisky.

Dr. Darling: Oh right.

Shazzer: Digitally photographing single malt whisky...

Dr. Darling: You do that more often than me.

Shazzer: Drunk digital photography...

Dr. Darling: Clearly I need some new hobbies.

One of my favorite colleagues, Eliza, came barreling into my office this afternoon while I was on the phone. Dancing around my desk she whispered loudly, "You've got to get off the phone."  The fact that I was talking to our boss did not deter her insistence.

"Seriously, you've got to hang up. Right now."

I couldn't imagine what would possibly be so urgent...but I'm always glad to have an excuse to cut short a call from our boss. As I'm trying to extricate myself from the conversation, Eliza has become even more desperate to get me off the phone, at one point taking a red dry-erase marker and writing TRUST ME in big capital letters on the white board across from my desk.

"You are going to be so happy!" she chimed as I hung up the phone.

Turns out she had submitted my name to radio station contest, and the announcer was going to be calling my mobile sometime in the next three minutes. What?! What kind of contest? Will the call be live on-air? Will I need to answer questions? IN SWEDISH?!

Eliza assured me that I'd be able to handle it because she'd briefed the announcer on my Swedish skills, which are a bit more limited over the phone. But I still wasn't completely clear on the details of what the contest was about when my iPhone vibrated and boom, I was on-the-air.

I remember very little of the conversation except for the part when she asked me what it was like to play in a band with Axl Rose (we were in junior high orchestra together), and if I had any idea what I'd won (which I didn't). I still wasn't sure when I gave her my address so that she could send it to me.

After I got off the phone I walked into Eliza's office, where she had been listening to the radio interview, and asked, "What the hell just happened?"

Turns out the station was asking listeners to nominate an "inspirational co-worker", and Eliza...who is clearly a marketing genius...submitted a description of me that was picked as the winner. (Though I suspect her mention of my childhood connection to Axl Rose had alot to do with it, too. For some reason Swedes are really impressed by it.)

And the prize?

A Samsung X120 ultra thin notebook computer!  I couldn't believe it! I never win anything! Dr. Darling was stunned as well, and jumped online immediately...I assumed...to check it out.

"You must be really excited about finally having a WinDoze laptop in the house," I said. "You looking at the specs?"

The Swede's reply?

"No, I'm trying to figure out if you're going to have to pay taxes on it."

It's been awhile since I've told any tales from the Swedish Laundry Room, primarily because we've had something of a monopoly on our preferred weekly time slot. In the 3+ years we've lived in our building, there just hasn't been much demand for Sunday from 7 a.m. to noon. And even if that were the case, there are three laundry rooms to choose from...all located in the basement which connects our building to the one next door. 

We prefer the laundry room directly under our building (oddly designated No. 5 even though it's one of three) because it's closest to our apartment, and these days, it also happens to have the newest washers and tumble dryer. This was not always so. The first two years we lived here, No. 5 had the oldest, slowest and least efficient machines of the three laundry rooms...which is one of the reasons why so few people used it. Plus...it's a pretty good hike for folks living in the other building.

Since the arrival of the new equipment, however, No. 5 is in much greater demand, but not at 7:00 on Sunday mornings. The two laundry rooms down the hall under the adjacent building are rarely booked on Sunday mornings either. Swedes may have a reputation for not being big church-goers, but it's not because they're doing laundry.

Two Sundays ago I went down to the basement to pull our last load of sheets and towels out of the tumble dryer and reserve the same time the following week, and I was really surprised to find the 7 a.m. to noon slot already taken. I shrugged it off as a one-time thing and reserved the time slot in one of the other laundry rooms in the adjacent building. But then the same thing happened the following week...our trusty No. 5  was already claimed for the following Sunday by the same person. (I know this from the number on the locking peg used to reserve the slot on the calendar board.)

So now it's pretty obvious this isn't just a rare glitch in my weekend laundry ritual, making it officially annoying...especially since the usurper lives in the other building where there are two laundry rooms routinely available on Sunday mornings. It was maddening! Even the unwritten-rule loving Swede was peeved. We had to get our laundry slot back!

But in order to do that we had to claim it *while* the poacher was actually doing laundry...hence his/her locking peg is in the laundry room door rather than the calendar board. This is more challenging than it sounds because we're doing laundry at the same time down in No. 3, so our locking peg is already occupied insuring that no one runs off with our socks and undies. (It could happen!)

Which is why this past Sunday morning I actually sacrificed the extra hour of sleep I could have had courtesy of the switch to Winter Time and started our wash at 6 a.m. Four hours later, with the interloper still in the middle of the rinse cycle, our peg was locked back into its usual slot in No. 5 for next Sunday.

Let the games begin.

I generally don't spend a lot of time looking at other people's photos on Flickr. But the exception is The Official White House Photostream, which never fails to charm, impress and inform. (Even though not all of the shots are taken by Annie Leibovitz.)

After much drama courtesy of the Super Secret System for securing holiday vacation time that apparently even Dr. Darling's boss has no knowledge of (more on that later), we were finally able to book our Christmas trip to the US tonight.

This marks the first time the Swede has made a US trip with me since Thanksgiving of 2006, so we'd not yet had the pleasure of using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. Here are the first three questions every foreign national is required to answer before entering the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave:

A) Do you have a communicable disease; physical or mental disorder; or are you a drug abuser or addict?

B) Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance; or have been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more; or have been a controlled substance trafficker; or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?

C) Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?

I was slightly shocked and somewhat offended on Dr. Darling's behalf, until she noted that this was merely an electronic version of the paper document that previously was filled out on the plane prior to arrival. As a US citizen, I'd never been presented with this form...and was probably too busy trying to calculate the value of all the coffee and chocolate we were carrying to read it over the Swede's shoulder.

No wonder we lost the 2016 Olympics.