Swallows fly north.

There are those of us who don't drive. God didn't make us for that, or we have a deficiency of a physiological nature, or we simply don't like it. In my case, first and third for sure, the one in the middle is not excluded, not controlled.

Relation Novi Sad - Novi Kneževac, must, wedding. According to the bus schedule, there are three departures, the one at seven in the morning suits us. At Novi Sad's intercity bus station, Štreberski, half an hour earlier. When it, however, “Swallow” canceled departure. First of all, I don't understand what the cashier is telling me, in my understanding of the world, public transport is canceled only if there is a breakdown or it is far away, so how? So nice, "Lasti" can also cancel the next departure. And how do I get to Novi Kneževac? The woman looks at me pitifully, she is not sorry, but in her understanding of the world I am somewhere between an amoeba and a member of a symphony orchestra who is not even a conductor.

I pick up the phone and look for a way. In a few minutes, the "Nis Express" will arrive for Subotica, but the question is whether it will arrive by nine when the bus leaves for Senta, it won't be later. Not going to the wedding is out of the question, if my sister managed to get there from Jakarta, I have to come from Novi Sad too. Otherwise, I will lose even this little bit of respect in the family, as much as a person who has reached retirement and has never bought a second-hand car in his life can enjoy.

A taxi from Novi Sad to Novi Kneževac one way is seventeen thousand, and he can also bring us back after the wedding, all together it won't be even four hundred, good bye. I am considering alternatives. Only one trip from Kovilji to Senta was reported on Blablacar, but the person goes via Žablja, not via Novi Sad. There are no buses to Senta, the one that was on the timetable was "Lastino", the one that was cancelled. Alternative directions maybe Horgoš or Kikinda, and further. There are minibuses going to Horgoš for Pest, I can get off and find my way around, but it's not there in time. A limited number of departures to Kikinda, nothing from Kikinda to Kneževac. A bus to Ada pops up in the browser, I can get there, where Ada is, there is Senta, where Senta is, there is Kneževac.

Another surprise is that the website says that the "Bechejtrans" bus goes to Ada, but on Saturdays only to Bački Petrovi Selo. Maybe, where Bačko Petrovo Selo is, there is also Ada, and... Nothing even from Bačko Petrovo Selo, on the bus I find out that they charged me for a ticket for a non-existent route, it only goes to Bečej. The kind driver announces that he will drive the second line to Ada and that he will accept a ticket to BPS at half past two, so let me hang around and kill a couple of hours. There is no way that I can get from Ada to Kneževac between two and a half to three, I say thank you and decide to hitchhike. Well, the last time I hitchhiked was about fifty years ago, but I believe that hitchhiking is like riding a bicycle, you learn it once and for all. I take a taxi to take me to the exit of the town. The charming lady driver warned me that hitchhiking wouldn't do anything, since there aren't even deaf dogs on the road on weekends, let alone cars. Maybe the taxi ride to Senta won't be expensive, according to the price list (she showed) three thousand two hundred? It can. And really, we didn't see a deaf bitch, two or three cars on the road. And one tractor, that one probably veered somewhere into the atar.

I arrive in Senta at noon, now I'm only twenty kilometers from the finish line, I reckon I have time to drink a coffee, and maybe say a couple of words to the mayor about what I think about the absence of a red carpet and sheet music, is that they took me away as a slightly older baby, but I was born there after all. I ask the waiter about a taxi.

In about twenty kilometers, I learned all kinds of things: that local entrepreneurs are not allowed to open a line to Novi Sad so that the interests of "Lasta" are not threatened, and that Subotica's public transport is in chaos since someone bought it, that there is a Senta-Čoka-Kikinda line from the railway, and that the rails from Čoka were pulled up and taken to Smederevo, let me look to the right and see, video. Not that they took the rails to Smederevo, but that they are gone.

I arrive at the wedding party according to the schedule from the invitation, 14.00 vendegfogatas. The wedding was and what can be said, at six I kiss and go to the bus station to wait for the "Lasta" bus from Kanjiža, according to the timetable, eighteen thirty and whatever. Frtalj until seven, there are no buses. I call the "Laste" call center, it is recorded that they are available all the time, so I apologize that the call cannot be realized, to call later and so on a couple of times. "Lasta" bus station, call rejected at the moment, Kanjiža bus station, it would ring forever from here, if only I had patience. Seven and Frtalj, apart from me, only the lady who came to visit her sister is excited, so she would like to return to Belgrade. The locals, a couple of young men, nothing, Googled "Swallows" pass by, buy their backpacks amicably and leave.

What am I going to do, I'm going back to the wedding party. By the way, I think that Novi Kneževac needs it when they elected a progressive government and their model of social Darwinism, which says that those who don't own a car should be grateful if a bus ever comes by. I think back, those who voted against also suffer from the progressive carelessness of the local self-government. Instead of that thought, another thought came: to buy a razor somewhere and cut the tires on the "Lastina" bus. Unrealistically, in order to cut the tires on the "Lastina" bus, the bus has to come, but it is not there.

I have the whole night in contact with the wedding party to master the basics of guerrilla warfare strategy in the local transport industry with the help of those present. In the morning I arrive in Novi Sad, admittedly via Subotica, but with the benefit of good apricots and meeting the fine world at Lake Ludoš. And it wasn't expensive.

I have no intention of taking the driving test in the old days. Probably there won't be anything from cutting the tires on Lasta's buses, it's not the way, and I don't want to go to Novi Kneževac to buy a real Banat razor.