A Couple of Christmas Mysteries
By: G.G. Niemi
Tags: Mystery, Christmas, Humour, Funny, Finnish

A Couple of Christmas Mysteries

This December we encountered a few unexplained events which may have been caused by too many Christmas Spirits

Photo from Unsplash

One of our Xmas traditions is to buy books for my wife and I- especially mysteries.

In November, we ordered 4 books from Chapters/Indigo.

We received all of them by the end of November.

I try to find at least one new mystery book with a story that takes place at Christmas, but they are elusive.

This year I got lucky by finding the Xmas thriller “19th Christmas” by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro. It reads like a screenplay for the CSI or FBI TV series, but it’s better than nothing.

For something different in this pandemic year, I even watched an old 1950s black & white Sherlock Holmes short Mystery called “The Case of the Christmas Pudding.”

We experienced a couple of actual mysteries this Dec. 2020 ourselves.

( In hindsight, I think a clue to these Christmas cases can be found in the word “ourselves” )

We got a phone call in early Dec. asking my name & then a female voice said that a package was being delivered to us.

We were not expecting any additional deliveries as we had already received all of the books we ordered.

A blond Scandinavian looking lady who had parked her unmarked black SUV near our home delivered a cardboard box shaped like a book.

It was packed in official looking Indigo/Chapters packaging but inside was a book we already ordered and received.

The book was titled “Lazurus” by a Swedish writing couple whose authorial name is Lars Kepler. The books are part of a series featuring a personally flawed Finnish super sleuth — Detective Joona Linna, who works for the Swedish Police.

I checked with Indigo/Chapters but the order number we had did not match their order number system and they had no record of us ordering the 2nd Lazarus book, nor did they charge us for it.

The 2nd mystery involved our gas water heater which is also our source of heat. It is located in our small laundry room.

This incident started in early December when an elf like repairman wearing a black “beaker” face mask that protruded out from his long nose came by to do a routine inspection of our gas tank. He said a weld on a water pipe connected to the tank had to be redone as it was welded wrong when the tank was replaced. He didn’t know when the tank was replaced as it was not written on the tank.

We think the tank had been replaced a few years ago but we had no record of this, although I remember it happening because that tank leaked.

Strangely, when the the gas company was called they also had no record of our tank being replaced either.

The elf like repairman came back in the next few days and fixed the weld.

Our tank overheated the next day and the relief valve blew.

The water temp. was almost 160 F.

The hot water tank apparently could have blown up our home if the relief valve had not worked.

The elf like repairman came back again and readjusted the tank thermostat, but the water temp. kept fluctuating wildly like it had a mind of its own.

We had to keep manually adjusting the temp dial.

We got so frustrated we sang “Let it Blow” instead of “Let it Snow.”

The tank was replaced by a couple of different repairmen on Dec. 23 costing $3500.00.

I blame both mysteries on Tonttu or Finnish Elves which apparently protect certain areas in your home like the kitchen & laundry room.

They do favours for you if you are in their good books, but get upset if you insult them by doing things like swearing- which I certainly am guilty of esp. at Christmas. The result could land you in hot water.

I also blame any typos. in this post on the tonttu.

There are also Christmas Joulutonttu which may have conspired with the laundry room tonttu to destroy our hot water heater.

Tonttu

I guess we’ll never know unless we can persuade detective Joona Linna to take on a Canadian case.

Dec. 2020