My consulting rate is candy. Preferably Swedish.

 This whole thing started maybe last year. I joined a Facebook group for Swedish women in NYC. Agreed for sure that my whole application to join (ie "Answer these three questions") was semi-disingenuous since I'm not actually Swedish and I did omit this probably important bit of information. Also, I enlisted a legit native-born Swede to double check my grammar and spelling before I hit submit.

But anyhoo, they let me in.

Fast forward however long between my visits to Facebook, and I saw a post someone named Anna had put up there asking if anyone was up to meet for a coffee in Chelsea. The post was several days old and no one had replied.

Of course no one had replied. 

Swedes in general don't just go gallivanting off and have coffee with strangers. They like the idea of socializing, but really have no interest in meeting anyone. Lucky for Anna, Americans such as myself are totally cool with this whole meeting up with strangers thing, and so, a few hours later, I met her for coffee at the now unfortunately defunct Cafe Grumpy on 20th street.

Hilariously, before I had said three words in Swedish, Anna pegged me for an American. I was like, how'd you know? Because I agreed to have coffee with a stranger in a very un-swedish way, or was how I said, "Hello" filthy with an American accent? I'm thinking no on the latter simply because there are no "r's" in "hello" and it's the R that is always the dead giveaway for Americans in any language I've encountered.

Anyway, we had coffee and hit it off. Turned out, Anna doesn't live in the USA. She's here often enough on business and her kid goes to college at FIT. So, days later, she returned home to Sweden and it was at least four months before we connected again. She invited me over to her daughter's apartment for a late lunch.

We had a lovely time but in the middle of eating, someone mentioned that the daughter, Amelia, had gone to the hospital for something and they had just gotten the bill. Yes, it was a Swedes Meet American Healthcare Moment of Reckoning and color the whole adventure traumatic.The bill they got was for upwards of ten grand.

"Do we pay it?" they wondered, looking kind of desperate.

Show me the bills, I said. Amelia pulled up their online account on the computer and started clicking through the bills.

"Give me the computer," I said probably looking like a battleax. I started typing my nastygram to the billing department. To Whom It May Concern, we contest this invoice. Please provide a full line-item accounting of this total.... blah blah blah you should see what I can put down on paper once I get going.

Then I attempted to explain what a deductible was and also co-insurance. They smiled and nodded but given the inexplicable nature of American health insurance, I'm confident they were just being polite and wanted me to stop talking.

At the end of lunch, Anna couldn't have thanked me more and asked if they could pay me. Of course not! Then she asked if there was anything that perhaps I might want that she could bring from Sweden. Oh, well ok. Since you asked...

I love me some Swedish candy.

Anna raided Amelia's cabinets and sent me off with three bags of Dumle, some Marabou and marshmallow cars.

Yesterday, I had an after work drink with Anna at Chelsea Market. She was in town for a few days. She thanked me because Amelia had texted me a few screenshots of things the hospital billing department had written and I texted Amelia back what she should reply.

Anna had an additional question or two about the still-ongoing hospital bills and I answered her. Then she took a bag of candy out of her purse and slid it across the table toward me. I thanked her politely but yeah. My rate is candy.