Clean cars

I walked down an average neighborhood street yesterday in Stockholm past about 40 cars. As I looked in each one, I noticed they were all completely clean! No food wrappers, trash or even crumbs. Every car looked great inside.

I think I’ve come up with the reason for this. No one eats in their car in Stockholm. It is not a fast food/drive-thru culture. The most people do around here is to take a thermos of coffee. And they love their coffee so much, they wouldn’t dare leave the thermos behind when they get to their destination.

I went through a drive-thru on the outskirts of Stockholm this past summer. I realized I had never done this in my 14 years in Sweden. They had 2 lanes for cars plus they actually used both the pay window and the delivery window – a practice the US seemed to give up about a month after it was introduced, leaving us with fast food restaurants full of empty windows.

Not eating in the car. Interesting concept. The Swedes may be onto something here.