(English translation of Sådant man inte begrep…)

A Wednesday afternoon during the spring half of the 1993/94 hockey season, it should have been, but I haven’t quite put the pieces together as I should have been able to. With the game schedule for the Allsvenskan after the Holiday break, I should have been able to figure out which game we would take the supporter bus to that evening, but I haven’t figured out how that all fits together.

During the afternoon, I’m going to trudge over to my buddy ”Lillen” with a blank videotape and exchange it for a cassette where he has made a copy of the video from the Färjestad-Huddinge game earlier in the same series, the opening game on the 12th day (Jan 6). Then I’m going home and another hockey buddy, old Stickan or ”Stigge”, will come over for coffee, before we head off together to Björkängshallen to travel by hired supporter bus to an away game.

I had thought I could figure out what game it must have been about, so that I could get the date and everything for this story, but in recent years I haven’t seen any games that match. A bus to an away game in the Allsvenskan 93/94 on a Wednesday night should in principle only be Vita Hästen away in Norrköping. But that game doesn’t seem to have been played on a weekday night. But I’m absolutely certain that the video was the one from the Färjestad game.

Anyway. I’m leaving late, and I’m pressed for time when I run off on my way to Lillen. For the sake of simplicity, we can skip street names or any attempts at describing the actual route I was supposed to walk or jog. The area has been rebuilt considerably since then. But I must have been on what was called Edsvägen when, with my video cassette in hand, I approach a Mercedes with an open bonnet and just see a kind of girl-next-door-ish cute dark-haired girl about my own age (I was 25 at the time) sit down behind the wheel and try to start the car. The result of this is one of those characteristic screams about the starter motor, when it’s normally the starter ring and the solenoid not gripping each other as they should.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about that,” I think. She just gets out again to go to the engine again – and our eyes meet. What do you say? “Faulty starter motor?” I blurt out. Intelligent observation, really. Especially when I explicitly emphasize it as a question. But of course, I at least showed that I noted and felt sorry about her predicament. And that felt very right.

“Yes, do you feel like helping me?” she asks, her gaze still fixed on mine.

“No, I have absolutely no desire, and no time either, I’m in a real hurry,” I naturally don’t answer, and don’t hurry on. I rather stop in a second and blurt out something like “If I can – absolutely! What? How? Do you have the knowledge? Just tell me what I can do!”

She explains the plan: if I can pull the fan belt back by turning the large fan itself up one lap counterclockwise, she will pull back and make sure that the belt itself is better tensioned against the drive wheel at the other “end” of the fan belt, where the generator is located. I have no idea, but I am prepared to try what she says. She seems to have an idea that this could be a solution. We take action and do as she says. It is possible to pull the fan back counterclockwise with small jerks at a time (every second time it feels impossible to get it moved, and the other times it does move a bit), and when I have made about three quarters of a lap she says that it might be enough, and sits down in the driver’s seat and turns the key to start.

It starts with the same starter motor scream as last time, but then it dies down, and you hear a more normal starter motor sound – and the engine starts. YES!

And I, being in my hurry, take my videotape, which I put on the roof of the car while working, and carry on. :-O

Yes. Unfortunately I’m not kidding here. Life is not always a perfectly written scene in a cute romantic comedy. Sometimes you can’t even imagine trying to stay ahead when life may have presented you with an unexpected and potentially really promising meeting. (What do I know?)

Before I’ve even made it halfway towards Lillen, I realize how damn stupid I’ve been. I should of course have closed the hood, shown my joy at having been able to help, and with the same warm smile asked if she could do me a favor in return – drive me to Apelvägen, wait while I pinged at Lillen and changed the videotape, and then turn away and drop me off at the turnoff at the Clock restaurant!

It would have been faster to begin with than continuing the adventure on foot, and who knows what might have come out of some basic introduction? “My name is Anders, what is your name?” would have been a very simple start. One thing is clear in any case – the probability is of course overwhelming that she would have given me a ride.

However, this was a couple of years before I started online dating and started to learn anything serious about contact with the opposite sex, so I might have managed to get a ride according to this theory, but completely missed trying to take any of my own initiatives or to take advantage of and respond to a hypothetical attempt from her to see each other again, if she actually would have made such a thing during such a ride in her car.

But the mistake of not even asking for a ride in return feels like one of the stupidest things I have done in my interactions with people I’ve met over the years.

I can just imagine what she must have thought… ”What a nice guy, why did he just run away, was he in such a big hurry somewhere? Somewhere he was going to get to on foot… I could have driven him…”

It’s been over 30 years now (!), but it’s a very vivid memory. Well, I don’t remember exactly how she looked or so. Dark hair. But apart from that…