Incongruous Things I Have Seen In or Near The Vatican

• A Swiss Guard in full uniform reading Stieg Larsson by the Scala Regia
• A monk on roller skates gliding down the street
• A black cat meowing in the rain near an x-ray machine under Bernini's colonnade

My Pavlovian Response

Apparently I am at my giddiest when, all alone, I press "play" and the up-beat theme music that you can mimic with a series of "doo doo doo"'s or "ba ba ba"'s (i.e. "30 Rock," "Arrested Development," "The Office," "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "How I Met Your Mother," "Flight of the Conchords") starts playing.

I begin literally squealing and squirming with joy.