Sphinka Flinka

I've got some friends who went to Norway this weekend during a well-deserved European vacation and I'm so curious to hear how it was. Not just for the fact that they are visiting a friend who I haven't heard from in some time, but to hear about Norway! I have no idea about that country or culture, aside from the fact that it seems cold and I hear there is much vodka and vacation time. Sounds good, especially if you've got your cuddlduds on.

But I have another reason for my curiosity about Norway. Back in the days of being underage, some genius-type friends of mine (known to many as being a part of Q, Goddammit) came up with the brilliant idea of posing as foreign-exchange students in order to get beer. A brilliant plot, it was. And everyone loved them as beer-drinking, quirky, Swedish Exchange students that they posed to be. By the time that I was interested in joining in the fun, they had decided that Sweden was overused, and created a student ID for me as Inga Dootsmort, studying for a year at UT from Oslo, Norway (or the Republic of Norwelij). It worked like a charm! When entering a bar or club, we all just looked about 6 inches beyond whoever was questioning our ids, smiled, said something clever like, "Yah, Havelun goot schmorgas," and we were in like flynn. The Q fellas even invented our own drinking song to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"...

Sphinka Flinka,
Sphinka Flinka,
Ex ma Krieg,
Ex ma Krieg,
Havelun Goot Schmorgus,
Havelun Goot Schmorgus,
Llif ym Reeb,
Llif ym Reeb!

Most of it was pure brilliance in jibberish, but those last two lines were Backlish for "fill my beer." Looking back, I'm impressed with the subliminal qualities of our drinking song, and I'm also thinking there was a lot of Monty Python-watching going on. This is pretty damn reminiscent of all those Scandanavian credits in the Holy Grail.

I owe many thanks to the Q boys. The Dootsmort-alter-ego is just the tip of the iceberg. But I will be anxious to hear about a real trip to Oslo from Letma and DQ (Dancing Queen, not Dairy Queen) and to see how the real Nordic version of Twinkle Twinkle sounds.