In Romania (yeah, forget Bucharest, this issue is much wider), cheating is a raison d’être. Companies push in fake invoices and buy out others’ bills to bring their balance next to zero, so that tax is minimal. Employers cheat their employees by paying them black money and declaring far less. Touring guides collect random bills so that they get more cash than what they have actually spent. Gas station clerks sell bills customers did not take to companies that use them to reduce the official profit and pay less tax. Restaurant managers inflate bills in exchange for some cash, so that group leaders get some extra money. A smart guy always drives against the flow, blocks the crossing, blows the horn for a couple of minutes, sends all the others to hell and eventually gloriously gets out of it all the first. Hooray. A smart guy never pays the bill, he bribes the police officer instead, even twice, including for his breaking the speed limit on the way back. A man of character never waits for the green light to cross the street, but rather sneaks among cars and sends them all to hell, while drivers do exactly the same. Those obeying the law are losers.

Welcome to Romania: “I give you tis, you give me tat”. This is the land where everything is for sale and where everything can be bought, starting with one’s mother and ending with one’s soul.

If one cannot trade his soul, one is weak. Stupid. Blind. Impotent. A sucker that cannot do any better, a jerk that cannot see opportunities. This is the only country I have been to where cheating is synonym with success, where idiots laugh while cracking pumpkin seeds and dropping leftovers off their car window, where people take carelessness and imbecility for virtues. This is the country where jungle is the law, where common sense is only a reason to have yet another good laugh. Where I cheat you, you cheat me and we both cheat the others.

Just like in the case of the stereotypical Bucharest Driver, of the eternal mockery (see Spit Those of Your Own in the same section), of the overwhelming corruption (see the Spaga in the same section) and omnipresent garbage, cheating lies at the very core of the Romanian society. A society that no longer has the notion of good and bad as guidance, but which has created its own percepts meant to show the way to its own crooked ideals, if any. This is a society where one finds orgasmic pleasure while swindling everyone else, including himself / herself. Dare ask Romanians why they actually live like this and refuse even considering changing their (individual) life approach. They will blame anyone but themselves: the “State”, the government, the bank clerk, the shop attendant. As if the society they are part of was an untouchable entity with only one purpose: oppressing  them. Dare challenge Romanians to obey the law. They will send you to hell straight away and laugh out loud. Sounds like the Middle Ages? Well, many Romanians still live like back then and call upon Vlad the Impaler to resurrect and “give them all a lesson” (well, “all” but oneself), so...