Unintentionally Uglified.

If pressure builds up long and hard enough then you have to find a vent somewhere. Most people get a new wardrobe, because that really helps. Some color their hair that really helps too. A tip - and this one is a freebie, is that you should never think that the answer to your problems is cutting your hair.

It makes things worse. It makes people laugh at you. It makes you have to buy a proprtionally silly flowered hat, which automatically adds forty years to your life. It makes your normally americanised brother deliver typically brittish expressions, like "Oh dear." and "Dear, dear me" with genuine sensitivity. The same brother who at five, asked me to turn around and count to ten while he peed in a cup. Without going into details, he threw the contents at me.

But the thing is, the thing IS - that things started off pretty nicely. Two centimeters off made quite the difference. I'd honeslty say that my sex-appeal figure skyrocketted from a bashful two to a foxy six, finally setting at the unpretentious four. Now the thing about autobarber's logic is that if it looks so good after snipping off two centimers, then true genius and hotness lies in cutting off fifteen. You'd think this was a good thing.

If anyone is looking for me, inform them that I am currently residing in a cave in the middle of nowhere, trying to find my zen, and fending off civilization with a little flowered hat.

Exeunt Me.

One year, three months and thirteen days later, and the booth is still intact, spreading its legacy with its light blue shimmer and stickers proclaiming low prices. The tourists still come pouring by. Timetables to Bromma are still waved by aggravted Skavsta travellers who wonder about the blatant lack of Skavsta busses.

Nothing really changes, and I think now, in retrospect, that I might have been a fool to think that anything would change. That will-power alone would open up a big black hole somewhere to the right and left of the booth leaving my window in the wall a destination only for the very brave, the very pure of heart, or the extraordinarily handsome.

I'd thought that at some point coffee would stay fresh for the full nine hours I sit there, that the wankers would stop asking for hand-jobs, that the old people would cease to look offended if you asked if they were seniors. That students would finally get their cards right or just not try to con a discount because they've forgotten their student card/ because they are poor/because they aren't really students, but they really really want the discount anyway.

I didn't succeed at any of these, and defeated, have resigned.

You know what? Just follow the white rabbit.

While sitting in the booth, you meet people from more nationalities than you thought possible. After a few months, you develop the ability to understand most languages, and most versions of names of airports. But some still have you stumped.

These are the top five renditions of "Skavsta", that I have hear so far. Some of these do have swedish equivalents.

"Eskapasta" (no clue whatsoever)

"Pepta" (go figure)

"SVENSKA" ("Swedish")

"Stonka" ("breath heavily")

"Svanka" ("press your bum up into the air")

There are many things that are lost in translation, but sometimes you have to wonder if some things (like "svanka") are added intentionally to spice up the situation.

Soon, my precious.

And then there are those, who despite language barriers, struggle to understand what you are saying, and when this fails, admirably invent their own theories.

There are about five timetables that customers can choose between so that they can check times themselves - these timetables are in Swedish and English. Every other time someone comes to my window in the wall, they're usually holding the wrong time table, despite the labels I've glued over the pockets holding the time-tables, and the fact that the name of the airport is printed on the front of the booklets. When I see that someone is waving the wrong time-table in my face, I try to correct them. Usually it works. The other day it didn't.

The man had a copy of the time-table for one of the most trafficked airports, asking about departure times to one of the least trafficked airports, pointing at the times in his booklet.

"Sorry sir, you have the wrong time-table." He looked at me questiongingly and looked back at his time-table, pointing at the list of times.

"Bus, it leaves 10? 10:15? 10:30? 10:45"

"No, wrong airport. Which airport are you going to?"

"It leaves 11:00? 12:00? 12:15? 12:30?"

"Sir, those are the wrong times. Wrong airport. Which aiport are you going to?"

"12:30? Okay? I take the bus at 12:30?"

"Sir, these are just random times you're pointing at. Your bus doesn't leave at 12:30..."

"Okay, I take 12:30."

"But there is no-"

"Okay! Okay. Thank you."

He walked away despite my protests, smiling and bowing. I do beleive that it is time for me to do the same. I'm finally taking leave of booth-life.


Soon.