Prologue

THERE IS A GRAIN OF JOKE IN EVERY JOKE
Homeland of Mission Impossible

Our reader R. from Avala sent us a short text. He found it, he says, in some Chicago papers. We used an internet search engine, have not discovered the papers, but will still share the short text with you.

Serbia is a land bordering with itself. The most beautiful women live in it, yet the birthrate is falling. The unemployed work most. The eight-hour working time lasts from 12 to 15 hours. Starving people live on the most fertile soil. Floods are the only means of irrigation. Trains are late by default. Everyone plays football, yet they win in basketball and volleyball. Everyone is hurrying to work, yet no one gets there on time. The ”academic 15 minutes” last an hour and a half. Snow is always a surprise in the middle of winter.
Health care in Serbia is free, medical treatment extremely expensive. Education as well. Journalists are completely free to write what is ordered them. Public purchases are secret and state secrets are public. The richest are those who have never worked. Foreign currency is in circulation more that the local. People pray to God whom they curse every day. Semi-analphabets write history. Court procedures last longer than a lifetime. The authorities see the citizens as unprotected witnesses. People live from the past and the future because the present is canceled.

Perhaps this is really just a joke.
However, in every joke, as we know, there is a grain of joke.