I live on a very quiet street. We don’t have any activities going on around here on the workdays. On weekends the street looks totally dead – no people, no cars, no noises, nothing. And today looked no different.
But around 3 o’clock in the afternoon I heard the sound of a car’s horn. It started and never stopped. At first I thought that it was some stupid guy calling his friends out of the house or a nervious boyfriend letting his better half know that his majesty arrived. But the horn went on and one and soon it was going on for much longer than any human could withstend.
There was a problem with some unattended car. Probably it was related to the heat that we have these days around here.
Olga closed all the windows and it was almost bareable. I waited for some Cypriot neighbors to call the police or do something equally responsible. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t, but the sound was going on for about 40 minutes now.
Olga suggested that I do something about it. So I called the police (199). Some guy listened to my story and transferred me to the appropriate deparment. A very polite lady listened to the repeat of my story, asked me for some personal details (name, address, phone number, country of origin, etc) and wished to know the registration number of the problematic car. She explained that she will be able to locate the owner using their database and inform him about the problem. I went out, found the car and called her back with the number. She thanked me and hang up.
I went back home and started to wait for a unit of brave horny car fighters, but they never arrived. Actually, maybe they did, but that must have happened after the problem was resolved. How was it resolved? Well, some other people got annoyed by the sound of the car. Someone tried to break into the car but failed. Than someone else tried and also wasn’t persistant enough. And than there was this middle aged guy, who was just passing by. He stopped for a second, looked at the car, than smiled, came up to it and hit it a couple of times on the hood. TA-DAA! It shut up and the problem was gone. No damage, no hard feelings, no problem.
Olga and I than had a short discussion trying to imagine how the same situation could have been resolved be we in another country. In Russia, for example, I guess the car would have been totally disassembled by the “good neighboors” into bits and pieces. In the States, police, fire fighters, ambulance, and national guards would have probably arrived even before the horn would started. They’d put the “don’t cross” police lines everywere. Maybe started evacuating people from the nearby houses. Even the S.W.A.T. team might have been called in to check for the terrorist danger or something. As you can see, we had some fun…
