A Life Stuff Post

Ateret Cohanim posts will continue next week, and I'll bring some additional posts on the City of David, and maybe even some archaeology!

Meanwhile, onward with everyday life! Telecommuting can be a drag when you're working in an uncomfortable office. I had been using a folding picnic table for work, sitting at a chair I found next to the dumpster.

Before: Jumbled wires, no drawers, a total mess.

So I went to Israeli Office Max (prounounced Ofeees Meks) to buy a desk. One thing I'll never get used to is the bargaining mentality. Everybody wants to get a great deal, and nobody, but nobody, want's to be a frier (sucker.) As for me, no matter what kind of deal I get, I always walk out feeling like a frier, knowing that a real Israeli could have done better. So it's always a relief to walk into a store modelled after the good 'ol no-stress USA, where prices are marked and listed for every item.

I glanced at one desk marked at five hundred shekels. Hmmm.... well, the price is a bit high, but that's the price. I started walking away when one of the red-shirted Office Max clerks ran up to me.

"Five hundred too much? How much? How much?"

"Uh, four hundred."

"Okay!"

I got a great deal, but felt like a frier. Office Max tricked me into haggling!

Anyway, the desk came, I finished building it, and now I've got a spiffy desk, and a nice, clean work area, no wires or mess.

After: A place for everything and everything in its place.

Aaaaaah.

A few days later, I saw someone from one of my failed shidduchim walking past. What struck me is that she's, you know, walking. Like, on the street, in public. I had always figured that the girls who turn me down for second dates spend the rest of their miserable lives sleeping on the floor in sackcloth and ashes, mourning their terrible mistake at having let a guy like me get away.

And now, I'm off to Modi'in, to stay with a friend from yeshivah for Shabbat.

Lots more coming up next week... shidduchim, learning, tours, work, you name it.

Shabbat shalom!