All the Terrible Things I’ve Done

When I was fifteen to twenty-five years old, I did, among other things, the following:

I was arre­sted, along with my childhood fri­end Jon Adal­steinn, for steal­ing a potted plant in the town of Selfoss at a time where my step­mother was runn­ing for office in the constituency.

I went to an afterparty at a hotel with a hand­ball team, which in my recollection was German, and splas­hed a glass of water on a sleeping hand­ball player with a skin-treat­ment mask on his face, so I could ask him into which room my girl­fri­end had disapp­eared. She ended up break­ing one of the beds with her new German athlete fri­end.

I hooked up with a stranger I met at a London nightclub, during the AIDS epidemic, and brag­ged to my fri­ends the following day that he had been, I think I recall, a mem­ber of the Manchester United tra­in­ing squad or youth team. My fri­end Aggi, who lived in London at the time, yelled at me for hav­ing given this man his phone-num­ber – this was before cellphones – and declared that he could have murdered me. Aggi him­self was eighteen years old and on the run from a for­mer drama teacher of his, an American woman in her forties who had followed him to London from the US because she thought she was in love with him. I think I rem­em­ber this woman being with us when Aggi scolded me, and also my fri­end Binna who had worked in a fish factory all of her teenage sum­mers. When the aforementioned man showed up to see me again, Binna took it upon her­self to give a longwinded pitch for various Icelandic seafood corporations so that the man disapp­eared, never to be seen or heard from again. Had social media exi­sted back then, I most certainly would have posted a photo of him and tag­ged the tra­in­ing squad or youth team.

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I off­ended one of the mem­bers of the band Whitesnake and was kicked out of a party thrown in their honor. I would probably have posted an emb­arrass­ing photo of him, if I’d have had the chance.

I was rude to local rock-star Andrea Gylfa­dottir backstage at a concert in Hunaver, a venue in the north of Iceland. I had gone there to babysit but I lost the child and went up on stage mid-show to revel in the glory of the spotlight.

I slept with guys my fri­ends liked because they had slept with guys I liked. I don‘t know which was the chicken and which the egg.

I threw an after-party at my step­mother’s campaign office, brought everyone from 22, a bar in downtown Reykja­vik, back there, and gave them beer at the expense of the then brand-new Social Democratic party.

My dri­ver‘s license was revoked in the small town of Flateyri in the West-Fjords of Iceland and when I showed up to the police station to deal with it, they discovered I didn‘t have a license for my dog, who growled at the police officers.

They got me to join a youth committee for the Left Party and entru­sted me with three thick bind­ers bear­ing all their sensitive mater­i­als. I took the bind­ers with me to Flateyri, didn‘t feel like rea­d­ing them but let Einar Oddur Krist­jans­son, my fri­end‘s father and a leader in the right-wing Independence Party, have fun with them over a glass of whiskey. I probably tra­ded them for a bit of the whiskey to take with me to a party in town.

I constantly took my fri­ends to all-night parties at my 80 year old grand­mother‘s house, a place full of fancy alcohol and a swimming pool in the backyard to goof around in naked. Grand­mother just tur­ned up the volume on her public radio channel and fed my fri­ends bacon, fres­hly squeezed orange juice and coffee the next morn­ing. Given the opportunity, I would doubtlessly have posted photos of my fri­ends in their birt­hday suits.

I showed up drunk for my shift at the Mal og Menning bookstore downtown Reykja­vik, and fell down a flight of stairs.

I almost had an orgy with my fri­end and my older female cousin but chickened out at the last minute and poured milk over them to stop them, like you do to the dogs in the countryside. Too bad I didn‘t have a smart­phone back then.

I got married one morn­ing spontaneously to get money for coffee and cigarettes because people are so nice and accommodating to newlyweds.

I wrote an endless string of bad checks at Nellies and Kaffi­bar­inn in downtown Reykja­vik.

I ran naked into a bank of snow outside a party and also down Skola­vordu­stigur in downtown Reykja­vik. I’m glad nobody had a smart­phone.

I attacked a sizable man at the bar Gaukur a Stong because he was pus­hing his girl­fri­end around. The man chased me out into the street, furious. Thank­fully he didn’t catch me, otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.

I poured vodka into the eyes of another man.

Me and my fri­end Binna climbed the icy-sheet on the side of the mountain Kinnin, located in the heath between Flateyri and Isa­fjordur, to get to the big even­ing bash in Isa­fjordur in celebration of Fis­herman’s Day. There had been no cars from which to hitch rides. Thank­fully we were too drunk to plum­met. Otherwise neither would be here today.

I hitch-hiked between vast areas in the Icelandic country-side to get to a good party.

I shaved off all the hair on one side of my head but kept it long on the other. I did this at the video store in Selfoss and then sat down on a third floor window-sill, feet dang­ling out, so everyone could see my great new hair­s­tyle. This did not go down well as my step­mother was, again, runn­ing for office. Thank­fully for her and everyone else, no one had a smart­phone.

I pret­ended to go to work in the morn­ing in the fish factory in the small town of Stokks­eyri, but instead I just went and laid down by the seaside and fell asleep.

I drove around a small town in Cuba in a bus that two guys had taken over. On the same trip I frequently misu­sed the credit card of my fri­end Lisa Krist­jans­dottir, now a senior advisor to the Icelandic govern­ment, who was tra­vel­ing with me. The following morn­ing I got diarr­hea at the Hotel Plaza in Havana and had an accident on the floor in front of some Cuban cabinet mem­bers. Lisa was still with me. I think she stopped using credit cards after this trip, they were a novelty at the time which no one really knew how to use properly yet.

I tra­veled to Madrid on my own and hung out with an illegal immigr­ant, a guy who mostly wanted to smoke weed and watch rich people go in and out of some rich-people hotel. In between I hooked up with American guys and imagined I was writing a novel. By the way, I also crashed with some Icelandic stewardesses and eventu­ally took over one of their apart­ments as I had for­gotten to get myself a place to stay when I flew over there on an open ticket.

I did all of this and so much more at that age. Some people did much more intelli­g­ent things. But this does not define me today, even though it gives me a laugh every now and then. I don’t know what would have happ­ened if the inter­net in its current form had exi­sted back then. Perhaps I would have lost my reputation for good because of some of these things, or for other things I don’t even rem­em­ber. I didn’t have the same good judgement I have today, although at times it could be better, even now. I was young. I was stupid. Sometimes amus­ingly stupid, sometimes dangerously. And this is why I think to myself now, when I see young Icelandic women shamed in the British media for a youthful slip of judgement: This could have been me!

Translated by Birna Anna Bjorns­dottir.

Audur Jons­dottir is an Icelandic novelist who has publ­is­hed twelve books that have been translated to eight langu­ages. Her next novel, 107 Reykja­vik, co-written by Birna Anna Bjorns­dottir, will be publ­is­hed in Reykja­vik in October.