THE EVENT WITH THE POLICE

This very evening, as I drove home after a little party in town, a policeman jumped out of the dark (and gave me a pretty bad fright) to warn me that I almost broke the speed limit, that I didn’t really produce my driver’s license fast enough, and, he could bet, my seatbelt was fastened only loosely. Luckily, after he had a closer look he recognized me—the joy of living in a small country is that everybody knows you, especially if you write a column—and therefore decided not to throw me in jail but to leave it at a fine. Another lucky thing is that I don’t drink, because according to a new law in Croatia only a driver with zero percentage points of alcohol in his or her bloodstream is a good driver. This means that if you have a glass of wine over dinner it’s best if you don’t as much so look at your car for the next three days. You can’t have a chocolate candy with kirsch or swallow a painkiller or reach for a ripe peach because any of it could turn you into a complete alcoholic in the eyes of a police officer. The law seems to have hit priests the hardest as they have to sip a bit of wine during mass, which automatically makes them irresponsible drivers. In order not to have to hitchhike after mass, priests started a media campaign to keep their “priestly percentage points,” but the outcome of that particular crusade wasn’t immensely successful. Overnight, we became the Land of the Sober. Irrespective of their status, everybody in Croatia drives one, two, or three cars, and now behind every wheel you can see a stern sober face with tightly clenched lips and I fear we might see an increase in suicides, especially as we roll towards winter. It’s not habitual here to solve depression with Prozac. A cocktail or a glass of sake in a favorite Japanese restaurant used to be a common cure, but now it’s down to a quiet drink of orange juice or a lemonade. Instead of orgy-like tipsiness and singing at official lunches and dinners (frequently practiced by some of our local politicians, whose noses are tell-tale red when they appear on television), now they might end up discussing the future of transition countries or some such marginal subject. This sober state will have an even worse effect on the sexual life of the nation because, after all, alcohol encouraged shy lovers, warmed up cold marital beds, and as for one-night stands—I won’t even go there. Did anybody ever do it sober? Ancient Greeks used to say that those who are...