From Nation's Capital to Nation's Capital: The Azza Street Spy

Customer Service, Israeli style
So, my phone "flew" out of my bag the other Friday afternoon. I basically never drop my cell phone, the only phone line I have. This time, the LCD broke: two-thirds of the screen was damaged and concealed.

On Sunday, after some medium-amount investigation, I figured out what to do. Even though I use a particular phone service, I had to go to the major Cellcom service center in order to get my phone repaired. You can call the service "free", or "pre-paid", b.c I pay insurance on my phone...

Anyway, I walk in. I'm slightly overwhelmed by the options, and a service person approaches and offers to help me. He takes the phone, the major information and tells me to go to the other desk in 40 minutes when my phone will be ready. "So, they are going to call me in 40 minutes to tell me my phone is ready for pick up?" "No. Go up on your own in 40 minutes, when it will be ready at that time."

(Not the end of the world. I brought I book with me and needed to finish it within two days. The book, "The Island on Birds Street" by Uri Orlev is a famous child's Holocaust book. Written in the early 80's, it has been translated into many languages and won multiple awards. In my ulpan, we read a different book of Orlev's, "Run boy, run", also a youth Holocaust story. Our teacher tracked down Orlev, a child survivor, and persuaded him to speak to our class at ulpan. He agreed on the condition that all the students read his "Island" book, so that can be the basis of his talk. The Kitah Daled class read that book, but we, Kitah Heh/Vav were reading two different books. Hence, my teacher said: Read this third book in your spare time. As I am waiting for my damaged cellphone to be serviced, I am fitting in the reading. He is coming to class in 1.5 days.)

I get in 40 minutes of reading and go up to the desk. They give me the phone and the service receipt. I read it and realize that my phone was ready after the first 13 minutes of waiting! So, after the first 13 minutes it sat there b.c they could not possibly call me up. I had to go to them, but was told to wait 40 minutes for some unknown reason... Amazing.

Moral of the story: Always carry a good book. You have no idea where and how long you might find yourself waiting.

Epilogue: Orlev came to ulpan on Tuesday and he was great! A total rock star. Humorous, cynical, all-around impressive. AFter his talk, we all lined up with our books for him to autograph.

Post-epilogue: I just learned that Orlev is coming to speak to the students at the elementary school where I work. I checked with the librarian who is going to get back to me. I can't wait to hear him again! I'll bring the second book of his that I read so he can autograph that one, too.

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