I was standing on the sidewalk talking to an old friend when a guy approached us asking if the car blocking his and hindering him from leaving was ours. We denied but my friend had a good idea of how to catch the car’s owner’s attention.

Now you have to know that in Hungary every car has an alarm, so my friend said: “Hit the tyre” and then, turning to me: “That’s where the alarm is the most sensitive.”

Actually, if you think about it, it’s a pretty good strategy: nobody is going to react when you simply honk your horn, but when you hear your car’s alarm go off you’re there faster than anything.

But then, after kicking the tire a few times, slapping the roof, knocking on the window and rocking the entire car he gave up as this was apparently one of the very few Hungarian cars that didn’t have an alarm.