The electricity conked out briefly as I was brushing my teeth this morning. At once I went to my study to check my desktop computer. Sure enough, it was dead. I had to restart it and reconnect to the World Wide Web. In addition to the lightning that killed my computer this weak, two power failures like the one this morning killed it, as well. How long will the poor thing survive under the circumstances, I wonder? At this weekly rate, it is a matter of months, I would guess. And the electric company people in Istria would only laugh if I demanded another computer on account of their incompetence. Even I started laughing when I imagined them laughing at me. “You want a new computer?” a plump woman behind a tall counter in Pazin would ask, her eyebrows raised high. “I do,” I would nod with conviction. The laughter would start at once, spread from office to office, and it would soon engulf me, too. The whole office building would be laughing and laughing. As good people in Motovun like to tell me when I complain about anything in Istria, if you do not like it here, go somewhere else. And good luck. In fact, that is how many people have left the godforsaken peninsula over centuries.