Tamper-Free Iceland

I think I'd survive about a week in American politics. Or maybe four days. One of the greatest pleasures in my life is realisation that on any particular issue I was wrong and that I need to change the way I think. Learning a new mental approach, often one better informed, is refreshing and frees me from the drudgery of being bound to my creaky old attitudes. I think this is what Merkins refer to as being a Liberal.


Reading this interesting article from our friends at The Reykjavík Grapevine reminds me of one point of much irritation and, to use one of the many words that float gracefully in the liminal space between English and Icelandic, vexation, and has been recently resolved for me.


In common with many other civilised places, almost all foodstuffs in Iceland come with anti-tamper seals. I found myself becoming disproportionately annoyed by the way the Icelanders deal withe anti-tamper seals on certain packaging. The chief culprits being the low, oblong packages like Smjörvi, rækjusalat, or paté. The image above shows the blood-boiling behaviour. It's worthy of careful examination of what Siggi's done here in his frantic race to inhale the létt & laggot.


The foil seal has been torn back about 60% of the way, but not removed. When I see this, my ears start to make that 'WooooOOOOOOEEEE!!!!!' noise that usually precludes the sort of white-hot rage that involves sacrificing small rodents or less sturdy items of furniture. Why? Why, other than the flavour of industrial-grade laziness that can reduce someone to morbid obesity in a week, would anyone not just remove the bloody foil?


What makes it worse is a couple of blindingly obvious things, both of which seem to escape Siggi in his lust for low-fat non-butter spread:


Firstly, he's gone mining. He's left the foil on, but opened a gap just big enough to be able to dig his knife in there and mine the butter-substitute. Leaving the foil in place seems to imply that he feels it has a function and indeed his actions when his excavation is complete confirm this: he semi-carefully lays the foil back in place, before... replacing the plastic lid.


...what?! He replaces the plastic lid?! Waddayamean? Why on earth would anyone with an IQ greater than the outside air temperature in Farenheit do this? He clearly acknowledges the inherent lid-ness of the lid, its ability to close things. But the foil? Why, other than myopia so strong that he regularly buys tennis balls instead of oranges, would he put the G.D. lid back on?


So, in my quest for an explanation of what, to me, seems like utterly illogical behaviour, I started asking people:


Me: "Why did you leave the foil on?"
Siggi: "Haa?"


Me: "Why did you leave the foil on?"
Siggi: "Aah, just, 'cos. I mean, why not?"


Curious, I gritted my teeth against the rising "wwweeeeeOOOOOO!!!!!" and kept going:


Me: "...ok. What does the foil do?"


There then ensued a brief pause during which Siggi thought. A very slight smell of smouldering filled the air between us momentarily. Siggi crunched up his face and replied:


"It keeps it fresh."


I realised that I was nearing my coup de grace. I reached for the plastic lid, lifted it high above my head, sharp edge down, then stabbed it forecfully and viciously into the soft void between Siggi and me.


"Then what, in the name of holy arse, is this for?" I asked.


"Um, that's the lid?" said Siggi.


I exhaled so hard I created a new parting in his hair, admitted defeat, weakly dropped the lid/weapon and walked off, the white noise in my brain rising perceptibly.


This episode has been repeated, in various levels of diplomacy or irritation, enough times that I now don't bother because I know the outcome.


Then one day it dawned on me. Icelanders simplay don't know what anti-tamper seals are.


They've never seen stories in their media about contaminated baby food, or someone holding a mayonnaise manufacturer to ransom, or some homicidal maniac poisoning milk in the name of his twisted cause.


To Icelanders, the idea of tampering with food is completely alien. If you started explaining the need for anti-tamper seals to Siggi, his face would screw up in puzzlement, as if you'd explained to him that he needed to carry around this foil umbrella as protection against meteorites. "But why would anyone do that?", he'd say, struggling to grasp the reasoning behind such stupid behaviour.


So I finally came to learn that the teeth-gnashing and the screaming white noise in my head were unneccesary. In their place, every time I see someone half-peel a lid and start mining I now simply sigh contentedly and smile smugly as I realise that Iceland is a place in which the concept of tampering with food for evil means has yet to be adopted.


It's been so liberating to me to be able to drop this anger, the sort of lightening of spirit that comes from truly forgiving someone who's committed a serious social crime against you.


I just hope that I can have the same epiphany about some of other bloody irritating aspects of living here.