I wish I had an actual photo of what I am about to describe. I was driving home after having dropped off the children at school one day last week, and I saw a man.

First, a little background about this man. He’s a bum. A real bum. I was pretty unfamiliar with bums before I came to Finland. (This is NOT to say that bums are more common in Finland, they just seem to be more a part of mainstream society.) Now, I had seen this particular bum the day before in the grocery store. Actually, I smelled him before I saw him. He ended up in the check-out line behind me. He was buying sausages, meat pastries, and beer. The cashier asked if he had the store’s bonus card. He drunkenly slurred that it was “in the car.” Ha.

Back to the school run. It was a warm morning. Already on our way to school, I had seen the man talking by the side of the road with two women, not far away from the grocery store I had seen him in. Now on my way home, I was coming up to the same spot, and I saw an ambulance stopped by the side of the road. Not only that, I saw two strong looking platinum blond female paramedics on either side of the man, escorting him to the ambulance while holding onto his arms and talking to him calmly. It is of this scene I wish I had an actual photo. It struck me as so Finnish – the bum, the blonds, everything.