Backwards thinking

Israelis love to make life difficult. No matter how long I live here I will never understand why. Two instances occurred at the most inopportune time, the eve of a holiday which was the same day my husband and myself were rushing to finish cooking food for his catering business. Being woken up the night before by the sound of my husband cooking at 4:3o a.m, which is also the time the Muslim call to prayer is sounded, didn't put me in the happiest of moods the next morning. Unfortunately their prayers echo off the Jerusalem hills and that's the last thing I want to hear before the break of dawn.

After walking Doggie in the morning, I realize I had to take money out from the bank. After getting my card from home, I walked to the bank. When I get to the ATM, all I could do was groan and roll my eyes. I had my U.S. Visa on me and I forgot that our bank, The International Bank of Israel, doesn't take Visa. How can an INTERNATIONAL bank not accept Visa?! After a few choice words to the machine, I decided to go to the other bank two blocks away that does accept Visa. All I wanted was money so I could get some organic eggs so my husband could finish cooking and I had to do this whole run around! The other thing that is so frustrating about banks and government offices is that they are only open like 5 hours a day, beginning at 8 a.m., so it's common to see people, myself included, making a mad dash for the bank before they close 1 p.m. or earlier. G-d forbid they should be open 9-5 like a normal country!

I called my husband to let him know I couldn't take money out and he said if I'm already going to the other bank, I should go to the supermarket since we needed to top up on a few things. Great. I was just there the day before. I NEVER want to go to the supermarket on the eve of a holiday. Not only is it a zoo inside, but there's hardly any cell phone reception in the supermarket, so if you're like me without a list, you'd better hope you have a good memory because chances are you won't get reception in the supermarket, the one place people actually need their phones!! Added to that, I didn't have the keychain on me which would release a shopping cart from its lock, nor did I have any change I could have used in its place. Getting a shopping cart shouldn't have to be so hard! Luckily the guard outside the supermarket knew me and gave me a cart.

Once in the supermarket, I got the first few things I repeated to myself numerous times so I wouldn't forget, but there were a few things I wanted to ask my husband about so I tried calling him. No luck. Really not happy that I had no reception and that I had to deal with the zoo that was the supermarket, I tried every now and then in certain spots to get reception. I was able to get like 2 minutes of a conversation in before getting cut off again. Instead of letting me speak, my husband used that precious time to vent about how his boss still hadn't payed him. Fellow shoppers saw my frustration and told me there was good reception near the eggs. It made me laugh that people knew the "spots" in the supermarket. Sure enough there was a small group of people by the eggs chatting away on their phones. Some were struggling with the reception. I felt like I was in the cell phone commercial where the guy says "can you hear me now?"

Finally I got all our groceries, and had them delivered. On my way out of the supermarket with milk, butter, and those prized eggs I went through the madness to get, the other security guard says to me "where is your cart. Why isn't it with the others?" After the craziness inside and tired arms from lifting 24 liters of water, I didn't care that my cart wasn't in its place. I turned around and in an exasperated tone replied "what?!?" I think the guard knew better than to mess with me at that point. "Never mind," he said. "Good!" I said. I wished him a happy holiday and carefully balancing the eggs, milk and butter in one hand and Doggie in the other, I walked home marveling at the reason such simple things like taking money out of the bank and using my cell phone in the supermarket need to be so difficult.