They speak Swedish in Sweden

Sometimes the local do-it-yourself car wash stalls unintentionally help you meet new people. Usually because the machine that only takes dollars in exchange for tokens is rejecting your crispy new bills that you purposely saved for the event.

It happened to me recently. And as I went back to my car to dig for crispier dollar bills that I knew didn't exist but hoped would miraculously appear, a gentleman pulled into the next stall and fed the machine dollar upon dollar with zero problem. I should have asked him to help me select the winning Lotto numbers with his luck.

At this point I had made my way back to the machine in time for his last dollar to be fed, and upon seeing my dilemma he kindly offered to trade some of my dysfunctional dollars for his beloved dollars. We got to talking, checked out each other's vehicles and he asked, "What's that 'S' on the back of your car stand for?"

"Sweden," I said.

"Oh, neat, so you're Swedish. Do they speak Swiss or Sweden there?" he asked.

"They speak Swedish in Sweden," I said.

"You speak it?" he asked.

"I sure do," I replied. "That's all my mom speaks to me."

"I'd love to go to Switzerland someday," he said.

"You should go to Sweden when you have the chance, it's a beautiful country," I said.

I said thanks again and we exchanged friendly goodbyes before we headed off to our stalls for a fast rinse, scrub, wash, wax marathon in the limited time the tokens provided. And while scrubbing away and trying not to miss a spot, I had to wonder how this kind middle-aged gentleman in his green Chevy Suburban who probably had two or three grade school aged kids didn't know more about geography. He's not the first person to confuse Sweden and Switzerland.