The COVIDious Days

DAY THREE: Taking Stock

I am waiting to unclench.

Under quarantine and locked down means that we spend a lot of time gathering Things and Stuff into ourselves and holding on tight. We hoard staples like flour and water and canned soup. We crowd our freezer walls with fresh meats and vegetables. In the days leading up to the quarantine, there was widespread panic. In every street people lined up for medicine, supermarkets and small grocery stores were raided and pillaged. And throughout it all, we did not know what was really going to happen. We waited for a word, for a decision. We held our breath. We stockpiled toilet paper. And we clenched.

What the Electric Sheep Say

For Christmas this year, I was disappointed to find that I did not buy myself a smart speaker like the Amazon Echo. This was very likely a subconscious act to prevent me from externalizing the dialogues I have in my head in the course of my solitary life. But I can imagine what it would be like…

Information is Power, Right?

Imagine yourself in a café.

You look around a little sheepishly, but you do not see the bathrooms. Finally, off in a corner you see a little gold plaque on a door. That must be it. You proceed apace in that direction. When all of a sudden you are embroiled in an ontological debate:

“That’s the women’s bathroom,” calls the voice of the waitress.

The End is Near

Our Livestock

This is the thing I say every year.

As the calendar year winds down to a final push, in which we must all run out to find NEXT YEAR’S calendar, we stop to take stock of our lives.

Our livestock.

This is Serbia!

While my memory is not the sharpest or the best in the world, I think I can manage to remember where I am. Most of the time anyway.

Still, it never ceases to amaze me at how many times, in the course of a normal month, week, day, and (on bad days) hour, people will invoke this sentence as a definitive argument and statement of fact. People will constantly tell me THIS IS SERBIA when I wonder why I cannot figure out the city bus schedule. Why does every official act require a mile-high stack of signed and stamped papers? THIS IS SERBIA! Where is the waiter with my change? THIS IS SERBIA! Why do we repair all the roads at once when the traffic is highest? THIS IS SERBIA!

Ah! Then that’s ok.

Balkan Time(s)

Time is a funny thing.

We usually think we don’t have enough of it, as if it would suddenly run out. And sometimes time seems to stand still. We set ourselves appointments in time, deadlines in time, and sometimes allow ourselves a timeout.

The whole world has agreed to this arbitrary standard, as a means of segmenting our finite human sojourn on this planet. We have divided it up into a certain amount of months, weeks, days, and hours and we agree to allow it to reign supreme over all our activities. Time is a cruel master – it never bends to our needs and we are forever chasing after it.

But then you arrive in the Balkans.

Serbs and Superstitions

Having slept quite well, I woke up one fine morning refreshed and in an excellent mood. People who know me will note that this is exceptional behavior and perhaps even cause for alarm.

My routine had all the usual morning hiccups associated with my as yet decaffeinated state: I dropped the spoon while making my coffee; I found a dark thread on my white bathrobe, which it seemed I had inadvertently put on inside out; the butter knife slipped from my hand mid-toast; reaching for it, I hit the bread and overturned it; I took a new piece of bread (and new knife) and re-booted. Thus reconfigured, I proceeded to my breakfast.

No IDEA Whatsoever

It’s a mystery. Wrapped inside a pickle. On a ham sandwich.

On sale in Aisle 7.

The mystery is that I no longer know where I am when I go to the supermarket in Belgrade. Today, for example, I started out list-in-handed on a journey to IDEA in New Belgrade. I had received in the post a special Happy Birthday coupon for a 10% discount (on almost everything except what I wanted to buy I found in the fine print).

When I arrived, I found a large empty shell where IDEA used to be. It has been “in renovation” for several months now, so one supposes that this is a euphemism for “it’s probably ok for you never to try here again.” Resourcefully, I decided to pull out of the empty parking lot and dog-leg it into Roda next door.

Instinct to Violence

One phone call was all that was needed to introduce violence into our home.

We needed movers. We called a few. We agreed a deal with one. He came, he forgot the deal, and he began threatening to “beat” us when we insisted. He said that he had beaten his mother that very morning. He held the thing we had to move hostage. He added, just for information, that he was a “woman-hater.”

All for €20.83.

The Exchange

“I am the author of this book,” I told the nice man who looked Official. “Why is it in the Architecture section?”
“Oh, it says Architecture, but really it’s not.”
“I can see that. But people will not look for it here.”
“This is Biography, Journals, and Autobiography.”
“But it says Architecture.”
“It says that, but it is not.”