01-VI-1995.
Two days ago it was Nina's birthday, and she had some friends from school. They, of course, were most interested in computer games, so we had the atarist hooked to that tiny TV (spot the kvin meri on it!), while the essex was simultaneously in use in the corner.
Yesterday, yet another rebdbfs.prg generated by rebfpt.prg for MEC.
Today, entering Hungary. This time it got complicated.
After the great smuggling of the disco saucer for the satellite, Vanji decided to buy some garden furniture. Had I not seen those before, I wouldn't trust them, but one can really sit on that plastic. So he bought four chairs and a table, while I bought six chairs - already had a table, made it of three 2" planks and four siporeks blocks. It would all almost fit into the corolla somehow, but the table wouldn't, the board is too large. So he made a deal with Mihály to swap cars for the weekend - he'd leave the corolla and we'd take the astra. We tied the board safely to the roof rack, and the rest fit in the back, it's a caravan*, and drove home. We smoothly passed the hungarian side of the crossing, then were met by a customs officer on our side.
- are you the owner of the vehicle?
- no, it belongs to our employer, here's their permission for us to use it
- means nothing to me... you need to know that if a citizen of FRY drives a vehicle with foreign tags across the border, without a proper import permit, he's in a breech of customs regulations, which can end in vehicle being confiscated.
- but this is not import, we're returning it in three days...
- you weren't listening... if a citizen of FRY drives foreign vehicle across the border...
- okay, we're not crossing, nothing happened yet.
And then we stood on no man's land and discussed. What now? Maybe we could walk over to the hungarian side, call Ileš and have him drive to the border, walk through, drive the car over? Nah, who knows whether they'd let us use the phone at all, that's a real triper. Look at what the guy said, who can and who can not... so it's not the problem that we or the car cross the border, it's we in the car that's a problem.
So we eyeballed the passing cars and picked up some guy who was with his wife, explained the matter to him. He handed his car to his wife, took over the astra, drove it over, left it parked on the side. We walked over (all our luggage still in the car) two minutes later, found the key in the ignition, drove home.
During the weekend Vanji called Mihály and explained the matters. To avoid any further fuckups, he and Vilmos appeared on the border with the other office car, on our side. Then we appeared with the astra, within about 20 minutes - couldn't be more precise than that, no cell phones. I don't quite remember whether they had it, I guess they did, these were all the rage in Hungary those years**, but we didn't. Then they drove both cars over, we walked again. Then on the no man's land we all take our seats as we originally were, and drove to work. That was the only time that we came to work in a morning.
The chairs served twentysome years and counting. Two broke under pressure (they weren't designed for rocking), but the other four are still around as of 2022.
----
* in american empire's units, station wagon.
** in fashion, yeah - more dangerous than a shortsighted granny at the wheel is the same granny also talking on the phone. I almost got mowed by one, crossing the street across from Gemenc, at the neckbreaking 5 km/h.
Mentions: 24-VI-2023., atariST, Gemenc Polyclinic, Ileš Notaroš, kvin meri, MEC, Mihály Weisz, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), rebfpt.prg, siporeks, triper kombinacija, Vilmos Hausz, Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), in serbian
4-V-2022 - 3-X-2025