2024-09-07
One unexpected thing the Summer vacation brought me was plenty of opportunities to practice kidnapping. Mostly, but not limited to, children.
This story is well known to everyone who's been around me during the end of the Spring. Back then there was a cat that strolled around my neighbourhood looking really scraggly. It had dense tufts of fur as big as my hands. It's also really sociable.
I was worried about it, and I've found out after the fact that I wasn't alone. It really looked like it was a stray and I decided to take it in.
This wasn't an impulsive decision. I didn't know when I would next come upon it, but I spent countless hours on the phone for a full week talking to the police, local authorities, and a respectable animal rights NGO to figure out what the best way to proceed would be. It turns out that the legal ramifications of taking a possible stray in are rather unknown. It may be theft of property, but it may also not be. It really depended on the person I was speaking to at the moment. Everyone agreed that the correct moral and ethical path forward would be to take it in and proceed to do my best to find the possible owner.
So I did. The next time I found it I caught it and carried it inside, suffering some pretty long bloody streaks along my arms in the process. Suffice to say that it was absolutely not happy to in my home. That very same evening a person from the previously mentioned NGO came by with an RFID reader. Swedish law mandates that cats must have an RFID chip with its code registered in a database. There's been some confusion about which databases, however, and a publicly run one has only very recently been started.
She found a chip in the cat and ran the ID number through a few known databases without luck. Then she took a few pictures and shared on the NGO's facebook page.
Over the next couple of days the cat made itself rather comfortable here. I borrowed everything a cat owner needs from a colleague's parents, and between my kids and myself the cat had access to all the cuddles it could ever want. It only took a day or so before it had settled in and become its usual sociable self again. We decided to call it Waffles for the time being.
After two or three days the owner had been found through the NGO's facebook page, and she got in touch. She wasn't exactly surprised that someone had taken the cat in believing it was a stray; the waiting time for a cat dresser was a full month and she'd been worried during that whole time that someone would draw that conclusion. She was quite grateful that I cared enough about her cat to attempt to save it, thankfully. No need to find out whether this was a theft or not in the eyes of the law, after all.
Also, she lives literally across the street from me.
Apparently the cat's name is Bamse. I opened the door and let him out immediately, of course.
Bamse didn't want to come close to me outdoors any more. He probably assumed that I would kidnap him again. He had no trouble coming up to my children, however. Danger-free cuddles, I guess.
My flat is on the first floor, with the stairs outdoors. As you ascend the stairs there's a wide platform between them and my door; an area walled off by my door, the doors to my two (small) storage rooms, and the stairs themselves. It's big enough that I carry my bike up to park it there rather than having it at ground level. An effort that makes a bit of noise.
I mention this because after a few weeks I was startled by Bamse running down the stairs from my door and past me when I came home from work. I had no doubt startled him, too, with my commotion. I didn't think much of it at the time, but then it happened a handful of times more.
As Summer arrived I had four weeks off during July. I spent most of that time at home, and often with the door open because of the heat. The consequence of this, I found, was that Bamse decided that my flat is his second home. He came and went as he wanted and made himself more and more at home. I often found him sleeping in my bed or on my sofa without having noticed that he had ever entered. And he would come lie down beside me or even in my lap when he wanted cuddles.
At this point I'm not sure whether I or he is the victim in this arrangement. At least his owner knows about him expanding his domains into mine and she doesn't mind. And he and the kids love each other.
G (obviously not her real name) is an extremely extrovert 5 year old girl. She already knew my name and I knew hers. I meet her outside now and then and she's very keen to talk. Up until I kidnapped her I had never met her parents.
For about half of my vacation I had my kids, but they spent the other two weeks with their mom. Having no kids at home is... quiet. I love it, but it also gets boring sometimes. One morning when I had opened the front door I saw G coming walking with sandwiches in her hand. She told me that she was going to have breakfast outdoors with her friend M, who lives in the flat next to mine; literally a metre and a half from my door. As it turned out he wasn't allowed to go out yet because his parents wanted to sleep in.
I hadn't had breakfast yet, and some company seemed nice. I got myself a few sandwiches and sat down on the stairs to have breakfast with G.
G being her typical forward self looked into my flat and saw the big hobby table I have just beyond the hallway.
Oh! This is a bit of a tangent! I don't think I've mentioned this before. Anyways; when I moved house I found that I had room for a permanent crafting space. This is really a boon because both my kids and I love crafting. I place a 160 cm wide table there with two hobby mats and a lot of storage for materials. Later on I failed to get rid of a large desk that I didn't want and just decided to append that to the hobby space in the corner to the left of the table. This thing is amazing. I spend a lot of time there.
Back to the kidnapping. G saw it and asked if she could come inside to have a closer look. I said "sure, go inspect".
An hour later she was still crafting, and M had now joined in.
I know, I know. Letting kids in like this without their parents' knowledge can be seen as creepy, and maybe even illegal. I'm not sure. However, my door was wide open and the first thing you'd see looking in would be the kids crafting. M's parents would hear him if they opened their door, and if G's parents came looking for her I figured they'd be going to M because that's where she was supposed to be. Which leads us to...
You should have seen the look on K's face when he came looking for his daughter. The confusion, mixed with a bit of worry. Not for his child's safety, mind you. I was out of immediate view when he stepped in, and when I saw his face he was still looking at the children. The look on his face said "Uh oh, is she stealing or breaking someone's stuff now?". She's very forward, as I've mentioned. Doesn't strike you as a victim to anyone else's whims.
The reason I was out of view from the door was because I was making tea at the moment. When I invited him for a cup he accepted. We got to know each other for probably an hour, disrupted now and then by me helping G and M out with materials and tools. When it was time for G to have lunch they left, and I got K's number so that I could get in touch if (or rather when) she showed up again. And she has, of course. Several times. With another friend, too.
G and her friend S became recurring visitors, often bringing M along. I notify K whenever his daughter is here, and he gets in touch when he can't find her. G and S roam the block as they want, visiting other friends too without planning ahead. K and I have swiftly become friends. Apparently kidnapping children is a way to make new friends as an adult. Who knew?
S showed up alone a couple of times and because I still hadn't met her parents I notified K and asked him to pass it along. Not sure if he actually did.
A couple of weeks ago G and S came knocking around 19:00 in the evening and wanted to come in. When I kindly probed them a bit they confessed that they were supposed to go home as bedtime was near. The last thing they said as they left was "we'll be back tomorrow".
The day after, when I'd come home from work, I wasn't surprised at all when G, S, and M came knocking. A side note: kids get confused when they knock on your door and instead of opening you knock, too. I find that amusing. I'd had some time to prepare, which greatly simplifies getting them going and having fun.
As usual I notified K.
To my surprise another kid showed up after a while: E, whom I hadn't met before. I think she was looking for G. She's only three years old and didn't come alone. Her father was trailing right behind carrying her 1 year old sister. I swiftly got another chair for E and picked out some materials for her, too. I don't think her father had ever heard about me, because he looked really confused. Like, really really confused.
I caught his name, but he was too distracted watching his kid to socialise much. Later on a bunch of parents showed up to get their kids, and I actually managed to get a phone number for S's mom. And she got to know who S was talking about when she said she wanted to go to "Crafting Björn". She'll actually be here later today with S and her sister to have some tea and let the kids craft.
To nobody's surprise it turned out that I was the only adult who'd known the kids would be coming over that day.
-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal