He looked up, puzzled, from the article on

He looked up, puzzled, from the article on dirty politics in the Ukraine. "Nobbler?" What the hell was a "nobbler?" Maybe it was a kind of

condom. But as far as he was aware, no Ukrainian politician had used one since the pre-Chernobyl days of the early 80s - however dirty he or she was. So, 'nobbler' - maybe it was a

nother country besides the Ukraine. Maybe it was Romania? Or Moldova. He didn't know. He didn't care, once you go east of Austria isn't all the same crap anyway. He threw a dart

and hit Montenegro, booked a oneway flight on Jefair out of Newark and after changes in Brussels and Ljubjana landed in Podglorica. He'd never heard of any of these cities but

the whole journey had an adventurous Kerouac-feel, in a way. In Podglorica, he looked for an inviting pub near the train station. Pubs neear train station all have the same

Bowl of stale peanuts that tell the same swarmy pub by train station jokes that used to keep them in their seats until their train arrived. This day however, these peanuts were not

in their seats when their train arrived. The stale peanuts were instead distracted with Pacman in the arcade nearby. One of them peeked out the window, and saw their train leaving.

The smallest peanut screamed, her voice shrill but wordless. Her friends looked to comfort her but missed her point, and by the time she regained speech the train was rolling away.

"Oh, the peanutity!" moaned the smallest peanut as the receding train blew its whistle. "What's that?" the oldest peanut said. "She says she doesn't like nudity," suggested another

"No," the little peanut exclaimed. "We missed the train." "Ok, we'll take a plane." gramps replied. It was faster but, after that everyone called her Prudy. Dumb deaf nuts!