Notes from a trailing spouse

—Hva’ba’?

The mustachioed man behind the counter hands over a cup of something (an espresso I think, or maybe a tea of some sort) to the costumer in front of me, another moustachioed man. Both have flowery tattoo sleeves, both have medium sized T-shirts when large would have been better. Both bob their heads imperceptibly to the hip music. Both have a bike helmet shaped tan on their hip foreheads.

Devarmesåmo, the costumer says to him. Dumåguberåsimånåkamelå, he says to the costumer. Then he turns to me again.

—Hva slags te har dere, I say, slowly, trying my best to enunciate each word.

—Hva’ba’? he repeats, frowning vikingly. His eyes are surprisingly blue, but I suppose that goes with the territory.

I study the sortiment of tea behind him. Assam, Ceylon fannings, Ceylon fob, Chaplan Earl grey, Darjeeling royal, Darjeeling singbulli, Formosa ooloong… In my former life, I would have struggled to taste the difference between any of these and luke warm tap water, but here we are in Copenhagen, doing our best to assimilate among the hipsters, and even though I don’t have any tattoos and my T-shirt is two sizes too big rather than one size too small, I have entered this hip café next to the even hipster Kartoffelrækkerne with hip tea on my hipster mind, and I will not leave without it.

—Te, I say again, intentionally absentmindedly, as if the absence of me uttering plant names is not due to ignorance, but due to wilful deliberation. Teeeeee.

His blue eyes start darting about under his tan line.

—Teeeeeeeeeee, I repeat and point vaguely at the hipstest flavour of them all.

—Eh, he says… English?

Now, listen. Apart from some strange words and way too many commas in Danish, written Danish and Norwegian are more or less identical. I-den-ti-cal. It follows that spoken Danish and Norwegian also are more or less identical and there should be no greater difficulty for a Norwegian to understand Danish or vice versa. It’s a matter of panscandinavian principle!

And yet, here we are.

— Te, I say again, with a slightly different intonation. Te. Te? Te! Teh! Theeee! Thaaa! Dæææ!!!

Sweat breaks forth and crosses his tan line, aiming for the moustache. His hands twitch on the counter, as if they are ready to do something, anything, but have no idea what. The costumer behind me coughs slightly for a few seconds:

—Jærsohamåkulstete!

The man behind the counter brightens.

—Aha, he says, a tea! But why didn’t you say so? I would suggest the Formosa ooloong, it is very trendy at the moment.

The hip music modulates into another hip music, same genre, different key. The hip costumers sip their hip teas hippingly. The hip bikes hip hip hip their way down the hip bike lanes outside the hip window.

The hip Norwegian gets his hip tea and sits his hip ass down on a hip chair. He can feel his moustache growing. Tomorrow he must buy a hipper bike, an old, soulful one, and a smaller T-shirt.

But first he must stop enunciating his words.

—Jædamosusomanåsønumlækåkøgå, he whispers to himself and sips his hot tea. Hippingly.