How I Spent the Summer Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall of Bureaucratic Futility, pt. 1

A few month ago I noticed that my credit card was about to expire in August. I was pretty sure that the bank sends you a new credit card automatically, but I called customer service just to confirm and was told that they would send it to my house by the end of August.

It was nearing the end of August and I was getting a bit anxious. I didn't want to be in the position where I was stuck without a credit card for a few days. Who can predict when you'll suddenly need to buy a plane ticket to the Cayman Islands or withdraw a suitcaseful of cash? Certainly not me. I mentioned the fact that I still hadn't received my credit card to my father and he informed me that he and my mother had received theirs a few weeks before (we'd opened our bank accounts at the same time). Well that did not bode well for my chances of receiving it.

I decided to go to the bank and talk to one of the bankers since reaching a human being through the customer service number is a painful ordeal, no matter what company (internet, phone, satellite company- doesn't matter) you're trying to get to serve you. After 20 minutes and the sum total of 3 people (out of at least 10) progressing through the line, I decided that recorded messages telling me to press a succession of numbers were not as bad as previously considered.

According to the customer service representative, my credit card had been mailed to me on July 25^th. She made this statement as if that solved all of my problems. Ah, well, if it was sent out 3 weeks ago with my parents' cards which were received 2 weeks ago, then I'm sure it's on the way. Because the post office's track record is so stellar that I shouldn't even consider the fact that it fell out of the truck 5 minutes after being loaded into the truck and is probably even now floating out across the Dead Sea or being snacked on by Bedouin camels. Thank you so much for your help!

According to her, I had to wait 20 calendar days (of which I had waited 18) and that I should call back in a few days if I hadn't received it by then. I was like, great! Looking forward to speaking to you again in 2 days!

Obviously the post office didn't magically reappear my mail Harry Potter style, so I called customer service again in 2 days and the representative informed me that he'd have to cancel my credit card and send a new one to the bank, which I'd be able to pick up in 3 business days. I raised my eyes to the heavens and let out a dramatic sigh.

“Well, if I've got no other choice, I guess you'd better do that.” Three business days fell out on a Friday (not part of the official Israeli work week), my bank branch was closed on Sunday, and Mondays I leave the house early in the morning for work, the gym, then more work. I was finally able to go back to the bank almost a full week after having my credit card canceled (luckily no spur of the moment business deals or flight from law enforcement officials had arisen). This required taking a number, and waiting for an hour watching the arbitrary letter/number system slowly tick by. My number was G104 which was called after F896, which was called after H67 which was called after G103. Most of the hour was spent listening to people try to haggle with the bankers over mortgage terms and attempting to figure out their number system (with little success). Finally, I was able to ransom my credit card from the hands of the bank, in exchange for a signature and my soul. I asked the banker if the card was a different number than the canceled card and she insisted that it was the same number as my old credit card. I informed her that that wasn't possible, since they had canceled my credit card in order to prevent credit theft. She maintained that it was the same number and asked if I knew my PIN or if she should order a new one, to be picked up at the bank in another 3 days. At this point I probably would have signed over my first born as well in order not to have to go back to that metaphorical pit of darkness so I let her know that I was all set.

At home I confirmed that the credit card number was definitely a new number, seeing as I had to change all of my online credit card information and one of my credit card payments had been denied. Over the next few days I made sure that my credit card was in working order and was quite relieved to find that I could make credit card payments.

Payday came around (yes, I'm working again, but that's a story for another day) and I was quite excited to deposit my check, having paid the 4,100 shekel down payment for school. My account was bordering on empty and in order to renew my gym membership and yearly bus pass, I was going to need funds. Well wasn't I surprised when I inserted my card into the check depositing machine outside the bank and my PIN was REJECTED. Turns out I require a new PIN after all.

I had to order a new PIN to be sent to my bank branch since sending it to my place of residence wasn't an option. This means that 5 work days later, I will be forced to return to the bank and wait for another hour, listening to people trying to haggle over their loan payments (this never works) with one of the 2 bankers present (for a population of 40,000) and attempting unsuccessfully to decrypt their number/letter cipher (which was clearly set up by the Soviets).

A Jewish Riddle

What do you get when you stick a bunch of Jews in a room together? Jewish geography!

“Oh, you're from NY? I once met a guy from NY. I can't remember his name but I think he was a lawyer or a doctor or something from the Upper West Side.”

“Toronto? Do you know a guy named Shmuel? I think that's his name anyway. He's my mother's second cousin from her father's side. I think he has a beard.”

What happens when the number of distant family members and passing acquaintances from all over the world is exhausted? The matchmaking commences!

And what is Israel if not a large metaphorical room with a bunch of Jews stuck in it? Everyone and his mother is a shadchan in this country. The old lady at the gym is a matchmaker. The hairdresser and the shoe repairman are shadchanim. Even the guy at the cheese counter decided I needed to find a nice boy.

I was in the changing room at the fitness center and an old woman sitting on the bench randomly asked me if I had a boyfriend. I told her that I did not, and she promptly asked me if I'd like one. I was like, “no, not really.”

“Good! I go to the Western Wall every week to pray for all the single people. I'll say a prayer for you that you should find your soul mate!”

I just sighed and replied, “If you feel you must.”

My mother brought a pair of shoes to the shoe repairman outside the shuk a while back and she must have mentioned that she had a daughter because the guy then tried to set me up with either his son, or some acquaintance (my mother's still unclear about who this poor shlemiel was) whose wife he didn't like. He hoped that they would get divorced and that this guy would marry someone else that the shoe repairman liked better. This was the first time someone had tried to set me up with a married man.

After this I asked my mother to please never mention me again and to stop showing people the picture she keeps of me in her wallet. I then secretly replaced the picture of me with a picture of an ogre with the hopes that even the most desperate would think twice about setting Shrek up with their 50 year old son who lost his job 5 years ago and still lives at home, but who happens to be a very nice man (even if he doesn't have much hair left and could probably stand to replace a few of his falafel meals a day with a salad).

A few years ago my roommate tried setting me up a few times. Matchmaking is clearly not included in her skill set (and I'm sure she has many). She should probably leave matchmaking to the professionals- like the guy at the cheese counter, for example. The first guy she asked me about was a guy who worked with her in archives. He had overheard her and another woman talking about dating and how there were no good single men. He popped his head up from behind the cubicle and announced to them both, “I'm single!”

I said no thanks to the desperate, eavesdropping archivist.

The next guy she tried to set me up with was apparently interested but couldn't even work up the courage to call me. I was not interested in a guy I'd probably have to coax out from behind the couch every time the doorbell rang.

The third guy was some yeshiva bochur about my age, whose Rabbi she knew and had said nice things about him. He was interested until he found out that I'd served in the army. It seems that his brain couldn't handle this new information and caused something to short out. He started freaking out that it was prohibited for women to serve in the army and that it was a corrupting environment, etc. etc. Even his Rabbi said he was overreacting and told him that there was nothing wrong with women serving in the army. It's probably a good thing no one told him that I had been a weapons mechanic, wear pants, and have no intention of staying home with the children. They might have had to call him an ambulance and defibrillate his heart. Nothing that my roommate had told me about the guy (even before his freak out) had made me want to date him (really? a yeshiva bochur?), but I least I'd had the dubious pleasure of being the cause of his minor mental malfunction.

Honestly, I'm a little too evil for a “nice guy.” A few weeks ago the hairdresser had mentioned to my father that he knows a nice 24 year old guy whose hair he cuts- an industrial engineer serving a 5 year stint in the army. I guess my dad knows me pretty well (a side effect of me living at home for the past too many years) because he answered that the two most important things to me are that a guy appreciate my sense of humor and that he like animals. The hairdresser didn't have enough information on this count but decided it would be worth pursuing. Thanks to my incredible timing, I'd made an appointment with him for the next week (before he could forget the entire scheme). But by the end of the session, he had managed to convince himself that a nice, shy 24 year old with very little experience with women (having come from a very religious background) maybe wasn't the best match for me. I was admittedly relieved.

A friend of mine recently asked me to keep her in mind if I met any nice guys. I was like, right, because I meet so many normal guys during the course of the day. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were her.

A Hobby a Day Keeps the Boredom Away

During the summer I like to collect hobbies. Two years ago I decided to learn the guitar. That didn't go as well as hoped due to the tendonitis in my left wrist. I have made some progress in the intervening time, but I tend to judge the amount of progress I've made based on how fast Moby runs out of the room when he sees my guitar. Cookie can't be trusted for judgment calls since she has terrible taste in music in general.

Last year I started making jewelry, admittedly a strange hobby for one entertaining a marked apathy towards ornamentation. Which is a nice way of saying I just don't care. Sometimes I even forget to look in the mirror before I leave the house. Which often explains the looks I get at the bus stop.

My mother has benefited from this new hobby, being the recipient of my first few experimental pieces. In addition to making jewelry, I decided to sell it at craft fairs and yard sales, since I'm not going to wear it. Craft fairs are kind of hit-or-miss. The most successful one to date was the Olim Craft Fair sponsored by the city of Ma'ale Adumim. The key to a successful fair is advertising. Which is one thing the city of Ma'ale Adumim has mastered. There were Godzilla sized posters plastered all over the city, at the entrance to the city, in the mall, in the local newspaper (it was a really large edition that week. Even Godzilla likes to read about local news).

The fair took place in the “Golden Age Club” building (yes, that is a euphemism for old people's clubhouse) and consisted of about 20 or so tables ranging from jewelry, to paintings, to Ethiopian fabrics, to a guy who made impressive use of popsicle sticks. They even had a table with samples of wine, cheese, and olives produced down the road in Mishor Adumim (the industrial zone outside of Ma'ale Adumim). It seems however that the city was doing the company a favor by putting out these samples and that nobody actually had any idea how one could acquire these products. This may have been the least thought out part of the fair.

My incredible luck put me directly behind the fragrant sample table. I decided to push my table over a few inches in the other direction rather than not breathe, seeing as making small talk with customers is rather difficult when you're lying unconscious on the floor. Even so, it was not far enough away from the aromatic goat products and pickled olives. They also kept stealing my customers. I could see people meandering in the direction of my table, getting distracted by free food and alcohol and immediately forgetting that they had ever been on the way to the jewelry table behind the pungent freebie stand.

Every cloud has its silver lining however. They did keep passing me samples of wine when they got bored. That almost made up for diverting my potential customers. And I did manage to do a bit of business regardless.

I have learned that any fair where there are children's activities are a no-go when it comes to jewelry. Aside from the fact that I'm forced to listen to hours on end of children's songs, the women and grandparents who come to these things are just looking for a place to dump their kids for a few hours and take an unobtrusive nap in the back while the kids are clapping and singing along. These people don't want jewelry. They just want to rest a bit after being run into the dirt by 6 year olds so that they can remember where they parked the car and where they live.

The most depressing craft fair I participated in was the craft fair that takes place in Jerusalem on Fridays in the center of town. My mother's friend Varda had talked me into selling jewelry and said she'd even help me. This is a woman who could probably sell ice to Eskimos and sand to Bedouins. I kept putting her off because of school, then finals, and this and that but I finally agreed to get in contact with the person who runs the fair and see if they had an opening.

As usual, easier said than done. I found a phone number and email address on their website for Yossi, the guy in charge, and tried calling the phone number. No answer. So I sent them an email and waited until the next week for a response, which I didn't get. Finally I tried to call the guy again, who answered and then asked if I could call him back in an hour because he was having issues with his phone or some such thing. Half an hour later I got a transliterated Hebrew text message in English letters from a different number asking me to email them. I texted back: “I did. No one answered.” A few minutes later I got another text: “Did Ze'ev answer you?”

Ze'ev? Who is Ze'ev? So I tried calling back the first number. Still no answer. I sent them another email figuring that it was probably just going to get piled up somewhere with the first email I'd sent them and that whoever was supposed to be monitoring the email account was on vacation in Turkey or Nepal.

Wonder of wonders I actually got a response to the email. Whoever it was (Yossi? Ze'ev? Itzik? Moshe?) responded that I should email them at the beginning of the week of the Friday that I wanted to sell jewelry. I was like, isn't that sort of what I just did?

None of the above was the sad part however, more just par for the course. The sad part was that on Friday, the city was practically deserted due to the “situation,” as people had taken to calling the undefined military activity and influx of rockets into the country. It was past the point of being a military operation but people were still hesitant to designate it as a war.

A few Israelis wandered over to the table to take a look, and a few young tourists from Ohio showed some interest but in the end I only sold two pairs of earrings (one pair to a fellow seller). None of the sellers fared much better and the organizers ended up collecting only a small portion of the money they usually take for a table, based on how much each seller sold. This was quite decent of them since at the other unsuccessful fairs I had been forced to pay full price for the table, whether or not anyone attended.

It probably wasn't very wise of me to finally agree to sell jewelry while there was a “situation” going on. My sense of timing is impeccable when it comes to a witty quip, but terrible when it comes to useful things such as making money. I'm not going to give up though. Mostly because the jewelry is starting to pile up in my room and pretty soon I'm going to have to move into the bathroom.

Natania Vs. the Government & Old Ladies With Cake

I have now completed my 5^th semester and second year at Hebrew University (yeah, go figure that one out). It has been an exciting year, one of much personal growth and growth of laboratory yeast. I learned many things, including how to sleep sitting up and how to do the kakuro puzzle in the newspaper (you know, the one with the numbers). Hopefully I learned some physical chemistry the second time around, since I don't think I could handle physical chemistry a third time. Don't worry, I did learn some actual stuff but when I talk about it, people's eyes tend to glaze over. This is a warning sign of impending science talk induced coma if I do not shut up within 3 minutes and 42 seconds. Therefore I will not share with you what I learned as you may be reading this at home alone. It could be days before someone found you, eyes open, face down, drooling on your keyboard.

I was also informed by the student authority that I would be required to complete 60 hours of community service during the second semester in order to receive a refund from them upon payment for the semester. This was mildly amusing since they hadn't yet refunded me for the first semester. I decided to turn the tables on them and threatened not to do my community service until receiving the 5,000 or so shekels that they owed me from the first semester. I then received my money. Of course I had already started volunteering, but they didn't need to know that.

I received an 8 page list of organizations I could volunteer with. None of them sounded like a good fit for me (i.e. they involved working directly with people), but I had to make a prioritized list of 3 places I wouldn't mind volunteering. Most of the organizations worked with children, children with problems, adults with problems, the needy, or old people. The first place I chose was mostly a logistics position not involving too much human contact. That one was of course not available in Jerusalem (even thought it was listed in Jerusalem). The second place where I was in fact accepted, was visiting Holocaust survivors at their homes. It seemed like maybe not the best idea sicking ME of all people onto these poor people, but it was either that or possibly traumatizing a bunch of innocent children. Somehow I also got wrangled into being a group leader of other volunteers. This involves sending out monthly emails and calling my group of volunteers once a month to ask how things are going with their old people, at least until they get tired of hearing from me and start screening my calls. My job is now much easier 6 months later since only about 3 out of 12 or so volunteers answer my calls.

The woman I visit is a Viennese woman who fled from the Nazis to Denmark at the age of 14 and lived with a Danish family for a few years until she was able to get to Israel at the age of 17. She then married a kibbutznik and had three kids. She's 89 and a half and still pretty sharp. We actually have quite a bit in common, and I do enjoy visiting her. She worries though that she tires me out on our walks up and down the block. I have to reassure her every time that I can probably handle the trek. Seeing as I did the 5K marathon and all which basically took place on a hill.

She also likes to feed me cake and cookies. She has that Jewish mother mentality and insists that I must eat more cake. I tell her, no thanks, two pieces are enough for me, really. She says “it's ok, you're skinny, you're allowed.” Well, even if I was skinny when I entered, I won't be when I leave. Sometimes I have to fend her off with chair.

Unfortunately she cancels our visits on occasion due to ill health or a doctor's appointment, etc. This means that I have not finished the requisite 60 hours I was supposed to have finished by June 10^th. I got an email from the student authority stating that since I did not complete my hours, they would not be paying for that semester. Joke's on them though, because they already did! Natania: 1, government: 0.

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.