The Egged Files

Oh Egged. You had to know I'd get around to writing a blog entry about you eventually. The bus company, whose tagline should be: “Egged- sending passengers into a homicidal rage since 1933!” is the largest bus company in Israel and provides most of the intercity bus service in the country. They are also subsidized by the government. According to Israeli law, rule of thumb, and international consensus, this means that they don't have to pretend to care about customer satisfaction. And believe me, they don't.

My story starts 3 years ago, with the introduction of the “Rav-kav,” the personal transportation card which can be used on all public transportation. All you need to do is load it in every different zone you travel in. Deciding how many trips you wants to buy- 1, round trip, 5 (so that you can't get back to wherever you started on that last trip), or even 10 or 20 in certain zones. You can even buy a monthly bus pass for a certain zone and load it on the rav-kav. And as opposed to the paper cards they used to give you that you only had to wave past the driver, these you actually get to run through their nifty technological advanced machines. Sometimes, when their machines don't work you even get to ride for free. This has happened to me at least 4 times. The theory was that this new card would save time. Well, that's true sometimes.

They also had a brilliant idea, which was to put out a student pass available either by semester, or for the whole year, at a very reduced price (half the price of buying a monthly bus pass). Any student who lives off campus, or even occasionally leaves his student cave, would be well advised to acquire one. So the genius minds at Egged decided to create the most inefficient, homicidal rage inducing method of carrying such a task out. Because they wouldn't be Egged if they didn't.

The first thing you need is a multitude of forms and photocopies of things that you don't always have yet because the minds that run the universities are not much different than those that run the bus companies. The first year, many people didn't have a rav-kav yet, so you had to fill out an additional form and bring it to the central bus station in Jerusalem (for the people who lived in the Jerusalem area). No one told us where exactly they were taking care of the student rav-kav so I went to the counter where they sell tickets and monthly bus passes. I was somewhat miffed when they told me (after waiting in what passes as a line in Jerusalem) that I was in the wrong place and then directed me to a back alley at the end of the 3^rd floor that I didn't even know existed. The place was mobbed. It was every single person in the Jerusalem area who a.) wanted to get the new “it” card and b.) every student in the Jerusalem area who wanted a student pass. I had left myself an hour before work to get a student pass naively assuming that it wouldn't take longer than that. I was wrong. It took me 3 days. I took a number but when I realized that my number was 300 numbers away I gave up and left. The next day I went back and took another number. I didn't make it that day either. My number was 800 or so numbers away. I kid you not. I had brought a book and some lunch. I ordered myself a coffee. Read the newspaper. But they closed the place before my number was wrong. I was pissed. The next day I got there at 8:00 in the morning (I'm not even functional at that time of day) however, they weren't honoring the numbers from the previous day so I took another one. Then I did some errands in town, wandered around for a few hours, explored the bus station (which alas, is not quite as much of an adventure as the central bus station in Tel Aviv) until they called my number some 10 hours later.

I shoved my way through the mob of perturbed Israelis (and trust me, that is not a place you want to be) and just about collapsed at the rav kav lady's desk. I handed her all of my documents and rooted around for my rav-kav for a few minutes until I had to finally accept the fact that it wasn't there. After 3 days of bedlam, havoc, and a new eye twitch, I couldn't find the card they were supposed to load. I think the woman realized that I was about to turn into the incredible hulk (I may have started turning a bit green and the eye twitch probably didn't help), and quickly assured me that it was no problem and that she would just print me a new one. I thanked her and started my meditation breathing exercises.

The next step, was to wait in another half hour long line so that they could load it. I was about to tell them that that was certainly a load of something, but I restrained myself and tried to quell the rising urge to start throwing things, including my new student card.

And that was year one. I made myself a promise then that if they tried that with us again I wouldn't buy one. Instead, I would pay with a 200 shekel bill every single time I got on the bus. And then I would spread my new movement amongst all the students, gaining momentum and political proficiency which would launch my future career as the prime minister. As the prime minister, I would fire Egged and publicly ridicule their incompetence. Not unlike what I'm doing now, except that when I'm prime minister my word will hold more weight.

Lofty goals, I know. Unfortunately for my cause, the next year they set up stations on the various different campuses in Jerusalem as well as in the bus station and a few other places and it only took me an hour or so on line to get it (I got there early in the morning).

Egged must have been disappointed at the ease with which we were able to get our bus passes last year so this year they decided to “improve” the service by combining the place where you give them your forms and they change the status of your card and the “loading station” where they actually make your card usable. The purpose of this announcement was only to make us more optimistic about our chances of getting a bus pass easily and smoothly than we have any right to be when Egged is involved. In actuality, what it meant was that for the few thousand or so students on the Givat Ram campus who wanted a bus pass, there was one guy sitting at a desk doing everything by himself. There were 2 options: 1.) write your name at the bottom of a 4 page list and drop in occasionally to check progress in the hopes that you wouldn't be in a class doing some actual learning when they called your name, or 2.) leave all your documents and rav-kav in an envelope and they would do everything for you and return it within 24 hours. This was a no-brainer. I would have left them my wallet and my firstborn to avoid the line. So I left them my documents at 10:00 on Monday morning and a few hours later I got an sms that my rav-kav was ready. I was very relieved (not to mention smug as I cut the line to pick it up). I put the whole experience out of my mind and went about my daily business.

Until Wednesday when last year's yearly pass ran out. I don't have classes this year on Wednesday, besides a few labs, so I don't need to go in to Jerusalem at all on those days. I decided to help my dad with the shopping (this nets me a free coffee- I wouldn't want anyone to be under the mistaken impression that I'm a better person than I actually am). We came out of the grocery store loaded down with a cartload and market bag worth of food and decided to take the bus home. No big deal, the bus comes every few minutes at that time of day and we both have bus passes.

The bus comes and I heave the cart up the stairs and confidently place my rav-kav in the machine. A red light flashes. I try again. The red light flashes again. The bus driver looks at his machine and says, “your card is empty.” I go, well that's not possible, and put my card in the machine for a 3^rd time. The driver is getting impatient.

“There's nothing in it, it's empty.”

“But I have a yearly student pass.”

“It expired.”

“But I bought in Monday!”

“What, it's my fault it's empty? You're blocking the door.”

I heave the cart up the last step and call my dad back to pay for me (he's the one with the wallet in our relationship). The driver goes, “You're not going to pay? Fine!”

I yell back at him, “I'm paying!” while picturing myself strangling every person involved in this fiasco (including the driver). After laying out 1,400 shekels and printing out form after form, they're telling me that my rav-kav is empty?! Someone's going to pay for this.

I decided to check the Egged website to find a phone number to call so I could yell at someone. They had put up an announcement that there was a bug in the system, and that everyone who had gotten their student pass between Sunday morning and 12:00, Tuesday afternoon had to come back to get their card fixed. They were very sorry about the mess and hoped for our understanding, etc. etc.

Facebook was abuzz with messages of denouncement towards Egged, a couple of which I have shared for your reading pleasure:

“I'm not usually in favor of capital punishment, but whoever is in charge of Rav Kav needs to be publicly beheaded.”

- Sarah

“Egged, I love you. Said no one, ever.” (rough translation from Hebrew)

-Elan

A Summation After My Resignation(s)

In preparation for the upcoming semester, I have quit all my jobs in order to have time to concentrate on my studies (not to mention breathe, eat, and sleep). For anyone who didn't know, yes I am going back to school again to study biology. Ever the optimist, I'm convinced that attempt number 4 will be more successful than attempts numbers 1-3. The alternative is too bleak to contemplate, even for a confirmed cynic such as myself. Considering I've spent a total of 2 and a quarter years in college, I haven't gotten very far. I'm going for a world record, you see.

So in summation of a year of working at the vets' office in town, I've compiled a list of highlights for your reading pleasure:

1. The time a hairless cat on a leash walked into the clinic. I almost screamed and climbed out the back window. There's a reason that cats are supposed to have fur.
2. The time I had to make licenses for a guy who had 10 ferrets. I can't imagine he has too much company over.
3. The time I had to make licenses for a guy with 20 camels. See above comment
4. The first operation I helped with. Doni (one of the veterinarians) asked me if I had a strong stomach. I answered “I'll warn you if I'm going to faint. Or I'll just faint.” But I didn't faint and it was way cool.
5. The class rabbit that had fallen into a vat of paint. A woman knocked on the door and said, “I have a little problem with this rabbit.” I responded, “Really? Is it that it's blue?”
6. The sheep. Doni and Marc walked in, each hefting one side of a large tarp. I asked who'd stopped paying them “protection money” and if they wanted me to “take care of it.” But when they put the tarp down, a very perturbed sheep popped out.
7. The time I lassoed a chihuahua. This story starts with a crazy chihuahua who just needed to get his nails clipped. He was not very cooperative and had to be anesthetized so he wouldn't chew any hands off. They didn't even have a leash for him, so we weren't sure exactly how to get him out of the cage we'd put him in, when he woke up. The man was like, not a chance in hell am I going in there. We looked hopefully at his teenage daughter but she was in the midst of a mini breakdown. When Doni approached the cage, the dog went nuts, barking and jumping around. When I approached him, he only growled threateningly. Which meant I was elected to get him out. Doni sent me to the hardware store to buy a length of rope and then tied it into a loop at the end. I was like, “so we're going to lasso this dog then?” He looked at me and went, “we? Who's we? You're going to lasso this dog.”

I'm honestly going to miss this job. At least the animal part of it. The other part of my job was calling people up to remind them to vaccinate their pets. This was not my favorite aspect of the job. Lord knows how much I dislike the phone. And talking to people. And especially talking to people on the phone.

A typical phone conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, I'm calling from the vets' office in Ma'ale Adumim. Your dog is due for his shots.

Client: What? Who is this?

Me: I'm calling from the vets' office. You need to vaccinate your dog for rabies.

Client: But my daughter just got her shots last month.

Me: No, not your daughter, your dog.

Client: I don't understand. How did you get my phone number?

Me: You're a client of ours. Your name is in the database.

Client: What office are you calling from?

Me: Dr. so and so's office.

Client: Oooooh, Dr. Doni! When can he come over to vaccinate Lucky?

Me: I don't know, you'll have to ask him.

Client: Can I ask you a question? Lucky's been throwing up a lot lately. And running around in circles with one paw in the air. Also, his eye is red and puffy and he sneezes a lot. Do you think he's allergic to our laundry detergent? Maybe he has worms? Do you think it's contagious whatever it is? My daughter's rabbit has been acting strange lately, too. Does the doctor deal with rabbits? And gerbils? What about trolls? Homeless men who have lost the capacity for rational thought due to cheap vodka? And so on and so forth.

As for my job at the restaurant, there's not much to summate. Every day was a circus. You have to be slightly insane to work there and if you aren't to begin with, you will be when you're done.

There are the questions that remind me why I'm not a people person, such as, “do you have anything that isn't steak? No, I don't eat chicken either. Or fish.” Well then I think you've come to the wrong place, my friend.

And then there are the other questions, such as, “is the steak off the bone? What about the chicken wings?” that make you question Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest. I don't know how these people made enough money to eat at an expensive steak restaurant, let alone put their own pants on in the morning.

That Alien Species Called Children

Children are something of a mystery to me. This is coming from a camp counselor of 3 summers. The more time I spend with them, the less I understand them. In a society that so highly values familial ties and generational continuity, such as Israel, one is expected to know about children. And not only to know what to do with them, but to actually like them. Especially as a female above the age of bat mitzvah.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not exactly the maternal type. I never had any younger siblings or cousins and admit freely that I know nothing about child rearing. As a teenager, I would get calls from young parents who were referred to me through friends, asking me if I wanted to babysit. I don't know why my friends referred me. Or why we stayed friends after that. Probably a mother gorilla would have done a better job than me as a child-minder. And after an unfortunate incident with a prank 911 call and a visit from the police, I stopped taking babysitting jobs if the children were conscious. I would only babysit if the kids were already asleep. Basically I was only there to fight off any would-be house burglars, or call the fire dept. if I smelled smoke. And frankly, I would rather attempt to fight off a burglar than be forced to entertain 6 year olds for 3 hours.

Here in Israel, people are even more trusting of strangers with their children. I was waiting in the Jerusalem bus station with my mother one day, waiting to get on the bus to Tel Aviv, and a woman shoved her baby into my hands and said, “hey, could you hold him for a moment?” while she folded up the stroller to put in the baggage compartment. I was holding the baby as if it was an explosive device, somewhat horrified, until my mother informed me that you have to support the head. I was like, “the head? Which side is that?!” It turns out I've been putting the diaper on the wrong side of the baby for 26 years. Just kidding- I don't do diapers.

Or, considering how ill behaved most Israeli children are, parents know that if their kids were ever kidnapped, an hour later the kidnapper would have crawled into the police station, bloody, broken and deranged, begging to give the them back. It's also entirely possible that some parents just wouldn't mind all that much.

Case in point: One day I was standing on the sidewalk minding my own business, when a 5 year old boy ran up to me, kicked me in the shins and ran off. I yelled, “hey! What was that for?!” as he ran away and his parents, who were standing right there not paying any attention whatsoever to their own offspring, turned to look at me as if I was off my rocker. Like I wasn't the victim in the story.

It always amazes me how much trouble kids can get into if you don't watch them every single second of the day. You turn your back to say hello to someone and when you turn around, the kid has ripped up a bunch of cardboard boxes and used them to start a forest fire. One day, I was watching a little Ethiopian kid running around with a plastic arm in his hands. His father found him, yelled “what are you doing?!”, found the mannequin that was minus one limb, stuck the arm behind it, looked around furtively, and then grabbed the kid's hand and hurried away. Another time, my mother and I were taking a shabbat walk, when we encountered a man reprimanding a bush. Obviously we stopped to watch, curious about any possible outcome of this conversation, when suddenly the man reached in and pulled out an 8 year old. That was the one thing we were not expecting. To this day, neither of us can figure out how he got in there.

A Moroccan jewelery once decided to “read my palm.” He informed me that I would have a long life and many children. I just gave him a look horror. He then offered to read my tea leaves, but I declined. He gave me a knowing look and said, “it's ok, many women are afraid of knowing their futures.” Well certainly, if it involves that many children.

I declare with out any shame whatsoever- I don't like children. And I've come up with a line of defense against being shown baby pictures. I keep photos of my cats on my phone, and if anyone pulls out pictures of their kids, or nieces and nephews, or cousins, etc., I pull out the pictures of my cats and say, “oh good! When you're done showing me pictures of your baby, I'll show you pictures of my cats!” They generally sidle away and mumble something about being busy, maybe later. Of course if they're cat lovers, I'm stuck.

Adventures of a Cowardly Brown Cat

Considering that our Tonkinese cat Moby sleeps about 22 hours a day, he still manages to get himself into an awful lot of trouble (during those remaining 2 hours of the day). This is a cat who hides under the blankets or in a closet when strange people come to the house. All it takes for both cats to scatter into the nooks and crannies of the house is a ring of the doorbell. The difference between Moby and his sister Cookie, is that Cookie is ruled by her stomach. She'll come out to inform us that it's meal time regardless of who's in the house when she gets hungry enough (which seems to be every few minutes). Then there's no ignoring her until she gets her bowl of chicken and liver Fancy Feast.

Moby, on the other hand, does not come out to request food or a lap if he hears people who don't live in the house. As my father likes to say, “Moby only sees people by appointment.” So Moby tends to get into little fixes when he's alone and bored- and there's no one to save him from himself.

A few days ago we got a knock on the door from the guy who lives downstairs.

“Do you have a brown cat at home?”

“... Er, yes.”

“Are you sure he's actually at home?”

My parents just looked at each other, and then back at the neighbor.

“Why?”

“Because there's a big brown cat on my balcony.”

My mother looked out the window and found Moby staring at her from the balcony below us. We don't know how he got there, whether he jumped or fell but my feeling is that he was discombobulated by the presence of the sukkah on our balcony. “I don't understand what this strange hut is doing out here! I will jump up on the wall to investigaaaaaaaaaah!”

So my mother had to go down and rescue the big dumb ball of fluff. She picked him up and carried him out of the neighbors' apartment but he freaked out in the hallway and ran downstairs to the lower level and then back up when he realized his mistake.

He was obviously somewhat traumatized by the whole incident. The next morning, we couldn't find him. He had last been seen sitting on the edge of the bed at 6:00 am and by 11:00 we had all 3 of us torn the house apart looking for him and had gone over to all the neighbors to ask if they had by any chance noticed a big brown cat on their balcony or in their house. Who knows, maybe Moby had gotten a taste for adventure? Maybe he had fallen off the wall again? A few years ago our next door neighbor had found him roaming around their apartment, sniffing at the laundry. But alas, no one had seen or heard a cat. My mother was panicking, thinking he had wandered off to die. I pointed out to her that even if he had, his body would still not have disappeared into thin air. That's against the laws of physics and biology.

I had even started making up flyers to hang in the building with his picture and our apartment and phone numbers when my father found him. He'd heard rustling in a box on a shelf and found Moby napping inside it. After all that, he'd been hiding in a box for 5 hours.

We called my mother to inform her that the big lug had been located so she'd stop worrying. She was still worried though that he was behaving strangely. Maybe she hasn't yet figured out that Moby is just a weird cat to begin with. This is the cat we found hanging by his front claws from a coat on the coat rack, and the cat that got one of his claws stuck in his own mouth (we had to call the vet in for that one). We once watched him get his paw stuck to the underside of the living room chair while trying to extract his toy mouse from underneath it. While trying to free himself, he got his second front paw stuck to the chair. By the time we were able to pick ourselves up off the floor and stop laughing at him, he had gotten all 4 paws stuck to the chair. His mouse was still underneath it and was probably laughing at him too.

One day, Cookie was howling at us and running around the house looking distraught. She finally ran up to the front door and sat there yowling until we opened it and found Moby sitting on the door mat waiting to come in.

Owning cats is a trip. Any cat owner will tell you that there's no such thing as a normal cat. All cats are weird. It's part of their nature. Why does Moby like to sleep on my dad's underwear? We'll probably never know. My dad claims that it's to prevent underwear thieves from running off with all his clean underwear. Why does Moby prefer to play with necklaces rather than string? Maybe it's best not to conjecture on that particular issue. Why does Cookie treat the humans like furniture? Because she can. Why did she walk into my room early in the morning, cough until I woke up, and then leave? Because she's a jerk. Why does Cookie aim when she pukes to get the maximum amount of splatter? Maybe it amuses her. Maybe she thinks she's somehow doing us a favor in her warped, pea-sized, kitty brain. She likes to stand on the stairs and see how many steps she can puke on at once, while getting the vomit in between the rungs to hit the coat rack and as much area as possible underneath the stairs as well. Maybe this is the cat version of ring toss- 'Puke Toss'.

So why does my mother worry when the cats are acting weird? I don't know. Living with cats is always an adventure. The real question we cat lovers have to ask ourselves is, even though they abuse us, try to steal our dinner, poop on our history notebooks (thank you Mimi), treat us like furniture and food machines, and make general nuisances of themselves- why do we still love 'em?

Well, for reasons such as these:

That is all.

Going Postal

In the United States, the term “going postal” is an expression meaning to go into a violent and uncontrollable rage. This term came into being after several incidents of postal workers completely losing all good sense and shooting or stabbing their bosses, coworkers, and members of the general public.

In Israel, the most likely perpetrators of public violence at the post office are the customers. Case in point:

Angry man whose number finally gets called: I've been waiting for 2 hours to pick up this package! This is ridiculous. I have a life, children, things to do! Why does picking up a package take so long?! If I had known it would take 2 hours, I would have ordered food at Aroma!

Apathetic postal worker: You have my condolences, because your package is actually in Qedar, not in Ma'ale Adumim.

I am not entirely sure I could describe the poor guy's expression, except maybe apoplectic. Yes, apoplectic would be appropriate.

I honestly can't imagine the Israeli postal workers a.) caring enough to get upset about work b.) having much reason to get that upset about anything. I spend quite a bit of time at the post office. For the past year or so, part of my job at the vet's office is to pay the licenses we've accumulated all week at the post office on Friday. It seems that the rest of Ma'ale Adumim has the same idea about paying bills and picking up packages on Friday since that's everyone's day off.

Israeli post offices are a one-stop shop. You want to pay your electric bills? Property taxes? School tuition? At the post office. You want to buy an international sim card, an electronic parking pass, or a foreign currency credit card? At the post office. Getting an officially signed and stamped signature from a loan guarantor or compensation from the German government for forced labor during the Nazi period? That's right, you can do it at the post office. It's no wonder that the post office is so crowded all the time. One post office with 3 (or 4 on a busy day) insouciant postal tellers for 40,000 residents? They don't even have a stamp vending machine. You have to take a number to buy stamps.

The workers seem to have it pretty good. Except for the occasional argument with a customer (which the tellers always win). They sit there with tea or coffee, answer their cell phones if someone calls, visit with people who come in just to say hello or show off their new babies. Basically, they're like the cashiers at the supermarket only with better pensions.

I usually don't mind all that much. I take a number, go get coffee, come back and play on my phone until my number is called. I give them my forms, they give me a hard time if the numbers aren't legible enough, if the form is too old and the computer can't read the barcode at the bottom, or if anything on the form is crossed out, reject the forms they don't like for arbitrary reasons (I have a particular aversion to this font, I just broke up with my boyfriend, it's a full moon, etc.) and stamp the ones they do accept. It only takes about 10 minutes or so for them to swipe the barcodes, type in all the information manually on their outdated machines (the ones that were probably bank castoffs purchased for 20 cents in the 80's when the banks finally upgraded their technology to the appropriate decade), and insert them in their stamping machine. If their machine decides it doesn't like your form, they'll pass it around until someone's machine finally takes pity on you and accepts your form.

Like I said, this usually takes about 10 minutes. Unless they get distracted in the middle. Which happens often. HR must have gone recruiting at an ADD support convention. I got the branch manager one Friday, and right in the middle of swiping my forms, he realizes that it's noon and that it's time to lock the doors. So he gets up and goes to lock the door but just then the mayor, who is up for re-election soon, and his entourage walk in. The manager shakes his hand and shmoozes a bit, until he realizes that he somehow has to get the mayor and his groupies out of the post office so he can lock the door. I can see him considering his dilemma- he doesn't want to push the mayor out, but more people keep coming in either to greet the mayor or take a number. The post office is turning into a circus. Finally the mayor takes his roadshow outside to meet the rest of Ma'ale Adumim and the manager is able to lock the door. He comes back inside and starts talking to the postal workers about managerial stuff I guess, and just forgets to come back to me. I can't even go to another person because he's already started and he's got all my forms on his desk. I finally had to send someone to bring him back so I could finish and get back to work.

A person must be mentally and emotionally ready to go to the post office here. You don't just stop in on your way home. No, you put on your figurative armor, prepare yourself for arbitrary rejection and do meditation exercises on the way. It's the only way to make it through the ordeal.

You are all welcome to share your post office experiences here for the sake of catharsis.

Social Media Is Not For Everyone

Hear ye, hear ye! The apocalypse is near! My father has finally gotten a Facebook account! The man who gets annoyed every time the phone rings has willingly decided to sign up to be bombarded by political cartoons, pictures of people's children, requests for borrowing eggs from people on the other side of the world, and status updates from people whose friend requests he only accepted out of politeness and plans on defriending after an appropriate amount of time (a month seems about right).

Everyone has different uses for facebook. I mostly use it to look at pictures of koalas eating leaves and videos of porcupines eating bananas. Some people use it for stalking high school classmates to see which of them are doing better than themselves and which are in prison. Some people use it to widely distribute messages in the hopes of getting at least a few responses- anyone going out tonight, anyone know where to buy a circuit board, anyone have an extra blow up chair in the shape of a duck? Those kinds of messages. Some people use it to see what their friends are up to without actually having to talk to them. Everyone uses it for stalking people.

What my father uses it for, I don't know (since I've refused to friend him). He only has 2 friends. On a good day. To be fair, that's probably more than me but I can't really see him stalking people he's just met, which is what, um, other people use it for (don't judge me- it's normal human curiosity). He's a follower of the “don't ask if you don't really want to know” policy. My mother is not wise enough to have learned this. Or maybe she just does really want to know. The difference between them is that you will never hear my father asking how a person lost his limb, what the surgery's for, or why the marriage didn't last, etc. This leads me to conclude that my father is not interested in going through people's facebook pages looking for clues about their hobbies, marital status, religious and political views, and family relationships. This also leads me to believe that my mother should probably not be let out unattended. She has occasionally wandered into restricted areas out of curiosity and probably has a file with several government agencies (in several different countries) after being flagged for asking the wrong people the wrong questions.

I understand that different people have different needs when it comes to facebook and everyone uses it differently. The problem is when my facebook needs and other people's facebook needs are incompatible. I just want to be amused. Funny pictures and cartoons, and amusing anecdotes are ok by me. Post a funny video, make me laugh, and I'll be happy. You don't have to announce to the world what you ate for breakfast, your exercise regimen, or what time you went to bed last night (incidentally because you were on facebook all night instead of sleeping). Basically any conversation I don't want to have with you face to face because it's boring is one I don't want to read about on facebook.

I also am not a fan of public meltdowns via social media. I recall a certain very long facebook post concerning the depressed mental state and terrible anguish of the author. I certainly wasn't going to be the one to ask what the matter was but someone else made the mistake of doing so. It turns out she had dropped her phone in the toilet. This is why I never ask. The poster is just waiting for someone to ask about their cryptic post. Well I refuse to fall into that trap. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise I'm just going to ignore it. Or better yet, maybe I'll start responding to these posts in riddles:

Random person who likes to write ambiguous posts: Want to lay down on the ground and get traipsed on by homeless people.

Natania: 42 and yellow!

I'm Not a Masochist, I Just Don't Like Change

A few weeks before I was hired at what I will now refer to as “that unfortunate place,” I had gone to the restaurant where I used to work to ask them if they needed help. It's not that I'm a masochist, I just don't like change. After finally finding the new location (it's down an unmarked alley with no sign until the city lets them put one up after 19:00), I wandered in to find the old manager still working there. He was excited to see me and promised he would try to convince the owner to take me back.

“I can't make any promises though. You know him, he's stubborn.”

Well stubborn's the nice way of saying it. I would have said something else. In any case, I heard back from him a few days later that they already had enough people working there but he would try to get me a job at one of the coffee houses in the center of town. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that the hours of a coffee shop would be very difficult for someone who doesn't live in the city. And whose brain doesn't start working until at least 9:00 and one cup of coffee. The idea of dragging myself out of bed to go serve people coffee (people who aren't me) was even more horrible than the memory of dragging myself out of bed for an 8:00 physics class. At least I could sleep in physics class. Which I did.

I thanked him for trying and figured I'd have to go out looking for something new. Finding a waitressing job in Jerusalem isn't so difficult if you have experience. Finding a waitressing job in a restaurant with coworkers who aren't insane, super high strung, shifty-eyed, sleazy, more neurotic than I am, or crazy French people (normal French people are wonderful people, don't get me wrong. It's the crazy ones that should never be foisted upon the good people of society) is another story. I'm at a point in my life where I've had enough nonsense, and I don't tolerate being treated disrespectfully. Luckily I'm not hurting financially so I don't have to work anywhere I don't want to work.

I saw an online posting a few days later that the restaurant had put up for waitstaff. I just rolled my eyes. Here you have someone who worked for you for a year and was fairly competent, asking for her job back and you would rather find someone new whom you'll have to train and for all you know is a reject from the Israel Circus School or secretly a robot? Really? I wasn't sure if I should be insulted or very relieved.

After the whole quitting “that unfortunate place” after 3 days thing, I was semi-browsing the wanted ads just in case I happened to stumble upon the perfect job. Maybe one for a jacuzzi tester in Tel Aviv hotels or a chimpanzee babysitter. Obviously I was not too optimistic, but I figured I'd at least look. No one ever died from looking for a job. I don't think, anyway.

My mother kept nagging me to go to the zoo and see if they have a job available. I was somewhat reluctant because it would take forever for me to get there by bus, and from what I've heard their budget is not doing well. And as I told my mother, I was afraid that once I entered the zoo, they wouldn't let me out again. Maybe an irrational fear, but one that's my mother's fault since she used to call me “her little monkey” when I was a kid.

About a month after my little “visit” to the restaurant, I got a call from the manager asking if I was still looking for a job. I informed him that I had not yet found anything else so I'd be happy to come back to work.

He was like, “excellent, come in next week with a black shirt, a black skirt, and a tie.”

“Wait, what?”

“It's ok, I have a tie you can wear if you don't have one.”

“A tie?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“What is this, the Olive Garden? I don't even know how to tie a tie!”

“I'll tie it for you.”

“Women in ties look stupid.”

In the end I agreed, because I'm an idiot. An idiot who doesn't mind looking like an idiot too.

Then it occurred to me that if I was going to wear a tie, I'd need a button-down shirt with a collar. Which I don't happen to have, because I am not a man who shops at L.L. Bean. Also, because button down shirts with collars make me look like an NFL linebacker.

So this is how I found myself back at my old job. In case anyone is wondering, I finally found out that the reason the owner of the restaurant didn't want to rehire me is because I don't smile enough. I think from now on I'm going to have him make my checks out to Miss Frowney McScowlson.