Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Thelma and Louise (Israeli-Style)

We live off of a mildly-major street (two lanes in each direction with a median in between).  I was crossing the street today to catch the bus when I saw the bus arriving.  Drat.  There was an unusual amount of traffic on the first half of the street but I imagined myself doing this if I was with my kids and telling them that there would always be another bus and no bus is worth running between oncoming traffic for, yada yada.....I made it across the median just as the bus pulled up. I thought I had a good chance of getting on as the bus was now right across the street from me, so I started waving at the driver, who did an excellent job of not seeing me (or perhaps not wanting to see me).

Just as I was ready to resign myself to a 15 minute wait for the next bus (certainly not the worst thing in the world) the car that was in back of the bus screeched to a halt in the middle of street, right in front of me, and a religious Israeli woman beckoned me to get in.  "Nah, no problem" I said, but she was laughing and I started laughing and I hopped in (she seemed totally normal and there were car seats in the back).  We had hurried introductions in "Hinglish" as she zoomed to the next stop, which is quite far (probably about 1/2 mile).  As we were turning on to a different street, and then another one, to get to the bus stop, I said, "I hope you were driving this way anyway" and she laughed and said, "no"!   She then pulled her car in front of the bus so it couldn't leave without me on it!  That was the most giggle-filled 90 seconds I've had in many years.  I wasn't sure if she'd understand the "Thelma and Louise" reference, but I did tell her in Hebrew that this was like a movie :).

Not to get too poetic about it, but this is why, when I say that I have no family in Israel, people tell me that we are all family.

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