Friday, March 20, 2009

Good Fences Don't Always Make Good Neighbors

So we're walking to the police station to update Husband's ID card. About a block away from the police station, we notice that all of the spindles from this guy's stainless steel perimeter fencing have been cut.

We asked a friend of ours who knows this guy, what happened? Aparently, during the night - someone came and cut all of the spindles and stole them. The fence had been there a week or two.

I guess that whoever stole them felt that they deserved the pieces more than the ONE WHO PAID FOR THEM!

The thinking might have been along these lines:

Neighbor A can afford a stainless steel fence;

I can't afford/don't want to pay for a stainless steel fence;

Since neighbor A bought a stainless steel fence once and if I take some of the pieces....he probably has enough money to replace them

Ergo...everybody wins.

On the issue of crime in Croatia...I would say that it is relatively low. I had a much higher chance of being wacked on the head by a lead pipe while we lived in Washington DC than I do here - where it is almost nil.

When crime happens in Croatia - it's almost always of the white collar variety (read: ripping people off for 1 kuna or 1 million kuna). The logic: You have a lot....and I have little (but somehow manage to have properties all over the county), therefore, you should give me what you have.

I'll give you another recent example.

In February, Croatia hosted the World European Handball Championship and Zadar was among the list of cities which held the games. While one would think that this would be a big deal for a small town....thousands of foreigners descending in the off-season...in fact, most restaurants remained closed (because it's the off season, silly). So, thousands of tourists were roaming around...had nowhere to go....nothing to see. That's the backdrop.

A little restaurant/bar that we frequent discussed their plans with us for capitalizing on the event. The Plan: Charge the tourists 10 euros for what costs the locals half. The rationale that they gave us....˝well, Germans are used to spending that on lunch...˝

Meaning, you have more....therefore you should pay more. I have less....therefore I should pay less....

Welcome to peasant economics.