A typical day in my life….not today, just a typical one. (Or, "What it's like to be 21 and over in Israel")
Morning, I wake up. I got mail, I never get mail, only the bank mails me… and they send it to my parents’ home…. Haven’t updated them yet.
Oh, it’s from the Army…. Last week I got a reminder of my unit’s emergency regrouping area and 3 weeks ago I got some registered mail about updating my personal details…. I wonder what it is this time.
Reserve Service… let’s see… they want me to do a whole month this time, November from the 3rd right up to the 27th. I’m glad I didn’t plan anything. November is a good month I guess, no holidays, weather won’t be too bad. My boss hates it when one of us goes to do our service, as almost nobody goes anymore…
The drive to work was normal, nothing special, heard the news (We have news on the radio on every station, every hour on the hour, and on some stations they have updates every half hour as well) Nothing new, shots fired in Gilo, somebody was killed, soldiers and civilians fired in the Gaza area, nobody injured. Three Palestian police officers were killed in a gunfight with IDF soldiers last night. They announce heavy traffic in the south Tel-Aviv area because police sappers are checking out a “Suspicious Object”
I get to work, have some coffee, check my e-mail and head out to a meeting in Hertzelia, drive to the high-tech industrial zone, to my client’s building, the Russian guy at the building entrance smiles, he likes my car… I drive a Renault Express and he doesn’t have to ask me to open my trunk since he can see the back of my car … he hated me when I had the Fiat, since I had to get out of my car and open it, which took forever. He writes down my number and let’s me in… I’m glad he didn’t start hassling me about the computer parts, I can’t stand when they do that… I know they are just doing their job, and it’s all about security, but how am I supposed to explain why a power supply looks like a bomb.
Skip, Skip, Skip, 18:00, I’m on my way home. I decide to go to the mall. Security guys at the mall don’t know me, so I have to stop while they search my car a bit, a Russian again is doing the searching, pretty cute Ethiopian chick is asking me a couple of questions, just to check if I have an Arabic accent I guess. Parked, go up the stairs, stop again at the mall entrance to have my bag checked by the guard here, this one looks Israeli born, probably just out of the army, making some money before taking a trip to South America or Thailand. I walk passed the McDonald’s and the Army Supply store “Ricochet” (Pretty big chain store) into the Camping store, I ask them about my shoes, Karrimor KSB’s which need some fixing, and they tell me it’s not in the warranty. Damn, I decide not to get them fixed, I walk back into the mall when about 10 minutes later I remember I forgot my bag in the store, I run back and when I get there I am greeted by the smiling store keeper telling me how I am lucky he remembered me come in with it because usually they would call the police to “take care of it”
And CNN calls this “America’s New War”…
It’s an old war… it just spilled into the USA, that’s all.