Eliza Reid

One spring evening, back in 2016, I'd just finished cooking supper for my four kids, who were two, four, six and eight years old.

And the landline phone rings.

Now, when the landline phone rings, that was usually either my mother-in-law calling from down the road in Reykjavik, Iceland, where I live, or it was my own mother calling from the farm in Canada, where I grew up.

But on this occasion, it was neither.

It was a man who identified himself as a pensioner in a remote northwestern part of the country.

And the man told me that he had been watching my husband, Gudni, on television that day.

And he was so impressed with what Gudni had to say that he just thought he would call and pass on the message that he thought Gudni should run for president of Iceland.

Now, the news in Iceland that day was dominated by something called the Panama Papers scandal, which you may remember was this scandal that involved various offshore tax havens and global leaders or their families.

And in Iceland, our prime minister at the time and his family were implicated in this scandal.

and ultimately had to resign.

Now, concurrently to that, there was this ongoing presidential election in the country, because we have both a president and a prime minister in Iceland.

And the president who had served for 20 years had announced that he was not seeking reelection for the election that year.

Now, of course, a scandal like the Panama Papers scandal that affected our own politicians was huge news in Iceland, and the television cut to just ongoing commentary on what was going on.

And my husband, Goodney, is a sort of bookish, cardigan-wearing history professor.

And he was the expert that they called on live television to comment on the crisis.

And that day, he appeared on TV for about six hours with a colleague, talking about what was going on in neutral, nonpartisan, sometimes funny but understandable terms.

Anyway, about 15 minutes after that first phone call,

Landline phone rings again.

Not my mother or my mother-in-law.

This time, it's a police officer from the south of the country.