Accio toilet paper!

Although I don’t think I can write anything fun or amusing about the charming illness of dysentery, enough people have challenged me to see if I can turn my personal misery into something funny, so here goes.

Of course, there are much worse things in life than to suffer a really bad stomach ache. Especially in Israel, we have more than our share of tragedies to truly weep over. So take this as it is. At the end of the day, all I have now is a case of “ain baya, ain baya.”

Now, I have noticed that Israel is an intense country. Everything is intense here. We argue politics intensely. (O.K., where I live the arguments are between those on the right and those on the far right, but we still argue.) Friendships tend to be more intense. Guys who have served under fire in the same combat unit have a bond that few can comprehend.

Want intense food? Try Yeminite schug. Get a shwarma with extra pill-pull. (And you just may need to pull a pill.) And don’t forget the intensity of mongol-mania on Yom Hatzmaut. Yes, we are a nation of intensity.

And alas, that seems to apply to getting sick. The first time I realized that I was not well was on a Monday morning when I woke up shivering with cold. Now anyone who lives in Neve Daniel knows what it is like to be cold. I remember walking to shul on a Friday night through buckets of hail and gale force winds. Compared to my shakes on Monday, that was a light summer’s breeze.

Yet just when I piled the blankets on top of myself, I felt hotter than I did on Tisha B’Av at the Kotel. (If you have every been to the Kotel on Tisha B’Av afternoon, you will know what I am talking about. If you haven’t, there is always next year!)

While I was wondering why the temperature inside my body was fluctuating so strangely, I felt a compelling need to rush to the bathroom. It was a nice bathroom, which was good because I ended up living there for the next few days. (I would write more graphically here but it wouldn’t get past the IDF censor. I think you get the picture.) All I can say is that my son left the latest Harry Potter book lying around. I have now read it nine times.

Four in the morning, I decided that I would make a break for the nearest “all-night” medical center and ask them politely to remove my intestines. Since my family was away in the States, I grabbed the keys and attempted to drive. This was a mistake. Luckily, there just ain’t that much traffic at that hour.

Of course, no one had told me that the “all-night” medical clinic now closes at “midnight.” So I now had to drive back to where I was sleeping, along with my intestines. It was not an easy ride. If the shepherd missing the sheep is reading this, I am truly sorry, but shouldn’t you lock your flock up at four in the morning?

For the next week and a half, I became even better acquainted with my friend’s bathroom and continued reading about Mr. Potter’s exploits. When I finally decided I needed a new book, I saw a copy of “The South Beach Diet.” Did you know the author made tens of millions of dollars from that book? I wonder if I could make money writing ““The Dysentery Diet.” Just go a few weeks living in a bathroom and eating no more than one plain pita a day. Guaranteed to take off all those unwanted (as well as several wanted) kilos.

I thankfully live in a wonderful place where there is no shortage of people wanting to help a friend in distress. Although I couldn’t eat them most of the time, I was given so many bowls of chicken soup I could have taken a bath in them. And after the first morning, I had many volunteer drivers to take me to the medical center to get inspected, injected, and selected for more tests.

Well, just two short weeks later I am looking thin and trim and have begun eating real food again. The only lasting effect seems to be a strong aversion to toast and Harry Potter books. And hopefully one day soon, I can once again find some “intense food.”

Ain baya, ain baya.

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.

In my not so humble opinion, there is nothing more thrilling than riding a bicycle along a rocky trail in the land of Israel. From the forest and mountains around Jerusalem to the stark grandeur of the desert, the land is full of amazing sites that come alive when you use your own power to experience them. In the three years since I moved to Israel, I have ridden thousands of kilometers, yet I have just scratched the surface of the beauty that this land possesses.

Yet as moving as riding in Israel is, once a year to ride a bicycle takes on another dimension. About ten years ago, some genius thought that he could use a bike ride to raise desperately needed money for a children’s hospital in Jerusalem. Apparently, many people agreed with him and the Alyn Hospital “Wheels of Love” ride began.

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Disclaimer:
1) The following story is not true. It is a complete work of fiction.
2) Even if it was true, which it isn’t, it didn’t happen to me, it happened to my friend.
3) But it really didn’t.

Last week, I had to take my car for the annual inspection/failure process, something about as much fun as a root canal, but more expensive.

This particularly unpleasant process begins with a notice in the mail that says you have to go to the Post Office and pay a fee equal to half your life savings for the honor of having your car inspected/failed. (Does anyone else think it’s a bit odd that most of the Israeli finance system flows through the post office at some point? When you think dependable model of efficiency, the words “post office” rarely comes to mind).

Once you have paid your fee and given a pound of flesh, you drive to an official inspection station. There are always lines at these inspection stations which many people try to avoid by driving around, in front of, or in rare cases over the fryers who are actually waiting patiently for their vehicles to be inspected/failed.

Next the inspection guy inspects and fails your car. You might think that only automobiles with something wrong with them would be failed, but no – apparently the Israeli inspection system involves the inspector pointing to some nice piece of your car that is in fine working order and scribbling a big X on his report.

The inspector – impressively while keeping a straight face – now tells you that a nearby garage will take care of the problem for you (he doesn’t mention that it happens to be owned by his brother.) The only problem is when you inquire about the price of say, a new tire, you are given an amount that would be much more appropriate for a new airplane rather than a round bit of rubber.

It’s not like you have to go to the garage that is owned by the brother of the inspector, however. In the example below–which DID NOT HAPPEN–I went to a local garage where I knew the owner. He of course told me that the tire which had failed the inspection was perfectly fine. Under no account should I give in to the corruption of the inspection process by purchasing a new one. That’s great, I thought, but I still needed to get the car inspected.

He came up with a much better solution than emptying my bank account for a tire. He cleaned the failed tire. I have to admit, it looked really nice and shiny. Yet I was quite nervous. Would the inspector figure out my scheme? Would I be sent to prison for showing up with a clean, rather than new tire?

There are some times (very, very few times) when knowing less Hebrew than a parrot comes in handy. This was one of them. As I returned to the inspection station with my shiny clean tire, Mr. Inspector walked over. He fired off a few sentences in Hebrew while pointing at the wheel. Here was the conversation:

Mr. Inspector: “…Galgal Chadash? (new tire?)”
Me: “eh, eh…musach (garage), hu omer tov (he said good), galgal tov (good wheel)”
Mr. Inspector: (bends down and looks very closely at shiny new tire) “Eze musach? (which garage?)”
Me: “eh, eh…musach gadol (big garage), musach tov (good garage), ani ohev galgalim (I like wheels)”
Mr. Inspector: “eh, ba ba ba ba ba…. (eh, mutter, mutter, mutter)”
Me: “Mevin Anglit? (Do you understand English?)”
Mr. Inspector: “Katsat (not a single world, not one syllable, not even a letter)”
Me: “Well, I have a really nice clean wheel as you can see. I don’t know Hebrew but I have obviously spent a great deal of money. Please stamp my form.”
Mr. Inspector: “eh? (eh)”

He tried a few more Hebrew sentences and then realized he was not getting anywhere with me and just shrugged his shoulders and took my form and stamped it.

Now, since I do not know much Hebrew, he might have told me when I failed that he was failing me because I had a really dirty tire. What he might have been asking me to do was to go clean my tire and come back. Perhaps, he was trying to tell me that his brother does really great work with soap and a hose.

Hey, I gotta try and give him the benefit of the doubt. It is the Nine Days after all.

And anyway, the above story never really happened.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.