A decade an a half ago, there was a Russian pole vault champion named Sergey Bubka who was bent on setting and breaking one world record after another. His trick? If he felt he could jump 10 inches higher than the previous attempt, he would split them into 10 attempts each of 1inch, thus setting 10 records instead of one. At a certain point, the Guinness Book created a category just for him: the person with the most Guinness records. But Mr. Bubka has retired from competitions since, and his Guinness record is in danger. Not from other pole vault champions. Apparently, no matter how many scientific sports equipments and training methods were discovered since, no one can get eve close to the Russian’s older records. The danger comes from no one else than my fellow Romanians. Every day of every summer, they bravely battle higher and higher temperatures. Every noon from June to September brings waves of heat, and each evening, on the news, we find out another record has fallen. I must admit that it took me some time until the truth finally dawned upon me. For some years I’ve been mocking my compatriots, even in Renderosity posts, for their total lack of care for themselves, walking around in the sweltering afternoons without the most basic survival kit: a bottle of water and a hat over their heads, imbibed instead with liquids of the alcoholic types. I was asking myself: what are these people thinking, if indeed, they are thinking at all? But now I know: they are our own champs, tirelessly training for Guinness records. They are our heroes, disguised in feeble senior citizens, brazen teens and careless adults. They are our record breakers undercover, giving the Russian champ a run for his money. Because Sergey Bubka’s claim to fame was that, with the aid of a pole, he could jump higher than anybody else. But can he survive one single summer day walking around under the scorching sun, on soft, boiling hot asphalt and between cement buildings simmering with heat, without the aid of a hat and a bottle of water? I bet he can’t.