Had I known that, I probably would not have experienced this afternoon's cerebral implosion. As it happens, I walked up to the kiosk and asked my question, anticipating a no, hoping for a yes. And that is what I got.

The cows around town, on Trg Republike, on Knez Mihajlova, generally mind their own business. They accost no one for theatre subscriptions, tissues, or wilted flowers. They do not ask the time or directions to Delta City. They look straight ahead into their forward progression or innocuously feed on the weeds growing from cracks in the paving.

After washing up on Plymouth Rock in December of 1620, the 102 passengers of the Mayflower set about the task of conquering North America in the name of Puritanism. Religious fanaticism not being sufficient protection against Cold and Hunger, 46 of the original sinners died in the first winter.

HERCEG NOVI, MONTENEGRO – There are as many Perfect Holiday Scenarios as there are people who might conceive of them. For me, observing the Alien Landings on the beaches of Montenegro is always one of the most anthropologically satisfying ways to pass the time.

You are out. You are away from the office and the daily hub-bub of whatever bub you happen to hub for a living. A few hours ago, you were disgorged from a bus or a plane onto this foreign shore. The sunlight blinds your troglodytic eyes, causing you to throw up one tote-bag-toting arm in futile self-defense. Your arms and legs gleaming white-grey the from hours of exposure to fluorescent light, sensitive translucent skin calling out to some long dormant genetic code linking you to a nocturnal amphibious haddock yearning to be free.  

But that was Saturday.

The following is a true story...

"I want to change from Telenor to VIP."
"Can I have your licna karta?"
I give my ID card.
"Wait just a moment," he said, and he went to the back of the shop.

15 minutes later.

As it happens, I was born on a Monday the 13th, at seven ante meridiem no less. As if I was born ready for school (or work).

Each time I brush with traditional bad luck omens, like black cats or walking under ladders or my unlucky watch (of which etc cetera), I am constantly confronting my conditioned reactions to them an assessing what they make me feel and sometimes do.

We mourn the sad tragedy of the passing of Michael Jackson at ago 50. We celebrate the man who was a star from early childhood, an icon in the 1980s, the King of Pop, and we kindly and gently pass over the child molester, the depraved sociopath, the one who dangled his child out of a London hotel window, the one who attempted to surgically alter his skin color making him look like more like a live-action cartoon character than a human being.

And it is all out of our control. Earthquakes quake. Weather squalls. Clouds cumulate. What can anyone do to combat this? Human fallibility on the other hand creates a whole new set of wrong-angle situations - trains derail, airplanes get lost over Malaysia, fanatics get elected to positions of power, armies roll in, and someone wears a red shirt with yellow striped pants.

True story. I have seen that guy.

Nearly exactly a year ago, at the tipping point between early- and mid-December, I forgot to go Christmas shopping. There must have been something good on TV.

Every year, faced with the prospect of engaging in pitched battle with my fellow shoppers throughout the month of December, I seem to make the resolution to do all the shopping in July, thus freeing myself from active duty and sparing myself more bloodshed.