There's something very awkward you feel when someone trusts you, without knowing you. I mean the way it used to be. When you said that you'll do something and no one was suspicious of you in the slightest manner, or thought that you'll cheat them or something worse.

That's the way it felt on my first trip back to Ikea. For those of you who have never been into an Ikea store, I'll give you some background. It's huge. It's a really, really big store, filled with all kinds of things you could ever need for your home, office, garden, kitchen and children. Their success lie in the fact that the products you buy are "flat packed" and you assemble it yourself when you get home. Sure there's lots of loose items too, from knives to candles to pots to curtains to boxes to kettles.

The one close to Göteborg where I live is very big indeed. 2 Floors and wide open spaces, filled with people every day of the week. The top floor is just room setting after room setting, where you can see the products in a kind of natural setting. So bedrooms to kitchens to lounges to offices and many more. It's not a case of going to the shops or a shopping centre and while you're there you go to Ikea. No. Here you go to Ikea all by itself, because Ikea is the size of a shopping centre itself.

So my girlfriend and I go for our first trip back to Ikea to buy some goodies for our home. And to just look around. Because believe me, there's lots to look at. Then after a couple of hours of looking and picking up what we need, we head to the paypoint or till or checkout if you'd like. There's 2 sections for payment. 15 items and above and 15 items and below. We fit into the latter category and go to where we need to go and find there's no one there. There's about 20 tills open, but no one on duty. Then upon closer inspection, we see it's a self help checkout. All 20 of them. You scan your own stuff. You swipe your own card. You pack your own bags. You go home. All of that and no one checked to see if we did it right, if we scanned all of our things, if we took the right amount of bags, if we paid for our things. None of that. It felt strangely exhilirating to be trusted in such a manner. You know the kind of trust you get from someone, and you'll do anything not to let the person down. It felt like that. That must've been what it was like when everyone's word was still worth something.

Sure there must be some cameras somewhere out there and big brother must have been looking, but there was no one helping me pay for my loot and they trusted me to do the right thing. It's easy to argue that, yes you were thinking of "what if?", but it's not like that. I mean I could have, not that I would have, but I could have. It's easy to say you won't steal anything, with everyone watching, but the fact of the matter is what would you do if you were alone, and no one would ever find out?

The strange thing is that you don't think like that. The overwhelming thought in my head was "You are trusted, don't let them down". And with that I clicked here and there, scanned my things, swiped my card, got my receipt, packed my bags and went to buy a hotdog, feeling empowered, alive, and strangely changed by what had just happened to me. Amazing what that kind of trust gives a person.

We've been back to the store again, and went through the same process again, and the feeling is still the same. Truly amazing to find that level of trust in a society such as we find ourselves in the world today.

Until I write again...