ATTN: Israeli Ministry of Immigration

It is rumored among some that I will, one day, pack up all my earthly belongings and move to this country, perhaps to a home in the north, because like the true canuck that I am, I really can't live without my snow.

This is a lie, in two parts:
a)I can live without my snow
b)If I moved here, the people would drive me to kill myself. Or just sell the whole damn thing to Syria.

To digress to the topic of Syria for a minute, did you know that Syria is possibly going to declare Shaba Farms as Lebanese territory? Shaba Farms, which Israel currently 'oversees' (or however you would like to describe it), was taken from Syria at the same time as the Golan Heights; when they tried to destroy Israel but then lost. Syria wants to do this (ceding the farms that they do not currently occupy, by the way) just to get people mad at Israel for not fully withdrawing from Lebanon, after all. Israel, which withdrew from Lebanon, like, years ago, would theoretically have to, according to Syria, withdraw from Shaba Farms, now (hypothetically) part of Lebanon, in order to fully qualify as having "unilaterally withdrawn" from Lebanon, so as not to irk the ire of Hezbollah.

Well.

I don't want to irk the ire of Hezbollah at all. In fact, I think next week, Syria should declare the area between Metulla and Eilat to be Lebanese territory as well. Because then Israel would have to withdraw from it's own country so as not to irk the ire of Hezbollah.

Are they joking? Did they really think that would work? Is Syria seriously following a foreign policy that not even a fourth grader would try to pull off? Because if they're considering it, I think Canada should declare New York to be Mexican territory and demand that the White House withdraw from the state so as not to piss off the federales.

Anyways, back to why I won't move to Israel (this year):
In a country full of Jewish doctors, I am the lucky one to be treated by the guy who graduated from the Moscow Medical School of Stupid. When my tonsil is redder than....well, a tonsil ought to be, is leaking pus and blood, is throbbing so that it hurts to touch the left side of my neck, is making my breath smell like a chemical toilet (because of the aforementioned pus; i brushed my teeth 6 times and still stunk), and is making me dizzy whenever I stand up, the answer is not "buy some throat lozenges and see me for a throat swab if it hurts in two days".
Luckily, I am now on some seriously heavy antibiotics that are very busy killing absolutely everything my immune system comes into contact with.

I would like to now make mention of an endearing little Israeli custom which I have come across. This is called "saving a spot in line". When I was in line for the doctor, waiting in my seat, a boy came along and sat down next to me for twenty minutes. I think he then had to go to the bathroom, so he actually turned to me and said "I was here after you, okay?"

Well, sure, dude. I don't care, so long as you aren't skipping ahead of me to see the doctor. I got this pus-filled tonsil, see? (God, I really need a tonsillectomy...)

I am not a witness, and this is not a grand jury trial. If you give up your spot in line voluntarily, kiss it goodbye, because you can bet your ass I'm not going to be one of those rude Israelis who turns to the unwitting bystander who comes to stand in line in your absence and who gets yelled at when you return five minutes later and says "She's right you know. She was there before you, so you need to move".

This has happened to me three different times. When standing in line (!) at the pharmacy to have my prescription filled, I found myself behind a woman who was sitting in a chair (that happened to be at the pharmacy, which thinking back on it, is in fact a little strange), and who said to me no less than four times "I was here first, so I am in front of you in line". You know, five year olds do that. Insisting on your spot in line is something that goes out of fashion with the second grade. It is also an indicator of dementia.

If you leave the line, you've left the line. And man, doesn't that ever suck, but tough freaking shit; if there is not a visible body part left behind, you are no longer considered as being 'in line'. A line consists of people standing in front of you and of people standing behind you. To be considered 'before me in line', you need to be, according to dictionary.com, in advance of me. That means that your posterior needs to be ahead of my anterior. If your posterior at any moment leaves the circle of space that is my anterior, you are no longer ahead of me in line. And the line moves on. Get the hell over it, and get to the back of the line.

I am living in a country where the population undoubtedly suffers from dementia. It's like a mass-psychosis.

And nobody is doing anything about it.

I think what I am going to do is conceive my children while standing in a line, so that no matter what happens in their life, they can tell whoever is in front of them to go to hell, because they were there first.