A Moogle  🏳️‍🌈 💻 🎮 🎶 🇸🇪

About a week and a half ago, a coworker started planning a get-together at his place for those of us coworkers who had expressed interest in properly trying surströmming. I've been here 7 years had had never tried it, so I was definitely in.

Unfortunately, said coworker lives about 1.5km away from the commuter train station, and my on-foot navigation skills are crap. So I needed a ride. Fortunately, he offered pick-up for those who needed it. Due to some miscommunication, I thought I said I'd need a ride, but didn't.

So, I waited at the station for about 20 minutes, trying to get hold of anyone on Slack, but it turns out most of my coworkers had arrived already, and my coworker who was hosting the party was, well, hosting the party.

I gave one final message on my work Slack account, apologizing for the miscommunication but saying that I would only wait about another 10 minutes before heading home, since all the folks in Tungelsta giving me the side-eye was getting tiresome.

10 minutes elapsed, so I started typing up a final apology for missing it, and to wish everyone a good time. I was 5 words from finishing the message and hitting Send when a car pulled into the parking lot across the street, the passenger got out, waved to me and said "Hej!"

I'm terrible with faces unless I've met someone 5+ times, but the guy looked familiar, so I just looked quizzically back. He then waved again and said, "Hej, Mog!" Well, this is certainly a turn of events.

Suddenly, @comicdook gets out of the driver's seat. I instantly recognized him, known him for years at this point. I expressed shock at them being there, and they expressed equal shock at me being down in Tungelsta and not at home in Skogås.

They crossed the street, we gave the usual greeting-hugs, and I explained what was up - that I was literally just about to head home, since this trip ended up being a waste of time, except that I got to see them, which was great. Then, an idea hit me.

"I mean, my coworker *did* give his address, it's only about 1.5km away. Dook, would you be willing to drive me there?" "Of course!"

So, the three of us piled into the ferret's car, and off we went. There was some initial consternation, as I misremembered the exact house number, but I was able to get clarification on Slack, and so we arrived. I suggested we should play more Raft soon, then joined the party.

The party itself was great, a vertiable UN of different folks. Two Swedish guys (including our host), three of us being US expats, a most excellent coder from Bulgaria, and a genius tech artist from Russia. Only the Swedes had had surströmming before.

Here's the thing about surströmming, something that gets overlooked in nearly every YouTuber's attempt at eating it: You're not SUPPOSED to eat it plain. Only an idiot would do that.

You need tunnbröd (a thin, crispy bread), dill, scallions, diced red onion, sliced tomato, cheese, gräddfil (a thinner sour cream), and potatoes. The surströmming is ONE PART of that.

Not only that, you need to remove the organs, press the fish open, debone it, then scrape the actual meat off the skin, and put *just* the meat onto the sandwich-y concoction.

I'll be honest: Even with all that, it's not great. In fact, I really hate it. However, it's not nearly the worst food I've ever eaten, and I would gladly try it again. Other than that, the evening really threw into sharp relief how badly I want to go back to working in-office.

Everyone I work with is such a cool, interesting person with their own unique personality and history, and the level of incisive banter is simply off the charts. You don't *get* that via text or voice chat. I need my vax jab, so I can get that day-to-day sense of fun again.