He's Scandinavian, I'm Argumenative

After getting our double-sick daughters (one with pink eye, one with nearly spent pink-eye and a previous night of vomiting, pajama changes, sheet changes, and sleeplessness) down for bed last night, Justin and I settled in for some Olympic downhill skiing and rousing conversation.

He jumped right in with an old favorite topic: Where Did I Come From? Wherein he expounds on the likelihood that his genetic makeup is more Scandinavian than anything else. It didn't hurt that we'd just watched a buff, blond Norwegian man win gold in the Super G. Of course he wanted to identify with that dude.

"See!" he insisted. "Look at that guy! We have the same basic facial structure, right?" His eyes were filled with a puppy-like quality that made me want to pat him on his button nose. But, not willing to be swayed by the 'doggy in the window' syndrome, I held my ground.

"Uhm, I don't think so." I said. I swore, if we had to have this conversation one more time, I was going to win it. "Besides, all I see when I look at him is a tall blonde. And you are definitely not blonde." Justin has dark hair and eyes, a small nose, and a strong jawline. See what I mean? (Just ignore that gypsy on the left. Nobody knows where she came from.)



I don't know what background the facial features hail from, but his dark-as-night hair is nowhere close to looking Norwegian.

His dark eyes narrowed. "I'm telling you, all Norwegians and Swedes are NOT blonde. I'm sure there are some dark haired Scandinavians. Like the 'Black Irish'? Anyway, I think my great grandmother was Scandinavian. Google it. I'm from Norway."

My own eyes narrowed in response. Was that a challenge? I was on top of it quicker than you can say Neutrogena.

I clicked over from my internet page and searched for Do all Norwegians have blonde hair. Because I'm from the School of Internet Query styles which supposes the web is a giant Magic 8 Ball, when I ask a direct question, I expect a direct answer. And the beauty of this system is that I can filter out the answers I don't want. A very superior way to win an argument. Usually.

This time it was a bit harder to grab hold of my magic answer, because nestled among the hair coloring advertisements and hair selling forums (!) was a link to a Norwegian Blog whose writer claimed a high presence of dark haired Norwegians. Crud, I thought. I'm bound by scientific, bloggerific, and matrimonial honor to inform Justin of my discovery.

By this time (internet research takes me awhile), Justin was setting up his indoor cycling trainer and I could have just skipped over my new-found information entirely while he exercised. I was trying to decide just how reliable of a source the blog link was, when Justin noticed my worried expression.

"What'd you find?" he asked, sidling up to me at the computer.

"Nothing! I'm still right! It's just...this one girl...she says therearelotsofdarkhairednorwegians. But she's just a blogger! She might have NO idea what she's talking about! A blogger's word isn't the gospel truth."

He looked at me sideways and I realized what I'd just admitted: Bloggers might have no idea what they're talking about. My pride wouldn't let the argument end there, so I poked around in a few more links (in a highly scientific way) to find something I could take to the bank.

And here's what I found:

An anthropologically-based map showing the areas with the highest concentration of blondes in Europe. (All the maps on that link held my geeky attention for quite awhile, actually. More proof that my Friday nights are TERRIBLY exciting.) The brightest yellow indicates 80% or more blondes, the next yellowest indicates 50% or more blondes, and the peachish-yellow covering most of the rest of Europe indicates a 20% or higher blonde population. My highly scientific conclusion was that most Norwegians are BLONDE.

I felt pretty good about showing this map to my so-dark-it's-nearly-black haired husband. I felt correct, which is a very good way to feel -- sort of like biting into a smooth, creamy truffle and having to lick your teeth clean of the dark chocolate left behind. That's how being proven right feels to me. Justin was sweating his life away on the bike by then, so I unplugged my laptop and carried it over to him, being careful to not let his athleticism infect my couch-potatoism. But he was working so hard, he couldn't see what I held in front of him. The map! The truth!

"I can't..." he croaked. "I'll look later..." His sweat-darkened hair was now so far from blonde, my map's data seemed to scream WINNER at me. I sat back down to peruse the maps some more, kicking my feet up in self-congratulation.

When his heart rate was finally evened back out to life-sustaining levels, he looked over and asked what I'd tried to show him. I explained the map with proud satisfaction, but the hard work he'd done on the bike trainer had drained him of any fight. He merely nodded and kept pedaling for the cool-down.

"Did I just kick you when you were down?" I asked, tilting my head a bit to show proper concern.

Breathing hard, sweating profusely, and handsome as a devil, he just nodded at me again.

Later, after he'd been off the bike for long enough to regain consciousness, he started the conversation again. "I guess you're right." he sighed. "I'm probably not from Norway, even if I am just like Norwegians."

Finally! My research and steam-blowing had won me the debate. I was right.

Justin then looked at me confidently and declared, "I always thought I was more French anyway."