Scabies!

On a note totally unrelated to the title, I would like to inform my faithful readers that while Elite Cafe excels in the field of customer service, their work in the field of muffinery could use some work. In other words, Elite Cafe muffins really really suck. A lot. Now, I really ought to start waking up early enough to make my own breakfast, but it seems that I have become so totally reliant on Elite Cafe as a main source of my nutrition that instead of making eggs and toast, which would use the food that has been lying around in my kitchen for a few weeks and thus preventing a health hazard, I decided that it would be okay to skip breakfast this morning and grab coffee and a muffin after my first class.

So you know when its a huge family meal, replete with paper placecards (how often does one get to use 'replete' in a sentence, anyways? RepleteRepleteRepleteRepleteRepleteReplete), and you're starving and your uncle, bless his sweet little heart, keeps going on and on and on about the biblical meaning of the meal we would eat if he didn't go on and on and on about it's biblical meaning, and suddenly, the paper placecards with which the huge family meal has been replete are starting to look appetizing? And you tear the paper placecards into tiny shreds and surreptitiously stick them in your mouth hoping to appease your stomach who is calling for a fatwa against your uncle, bless his sweet little heart, and while you're trying to be discreet, you know that in fact all of your cousins are doing the same thing? And the paper placecards with which the huge family meal has been replete taste exactly how you thought paper would taste? And how all you really want is one tiny goddamn pickle, but for now you have to put up with the shame of eating paper, which they probably don't even stoop to in Sierra Leone on a bad day, (does Sierra Leone have good days?), until your uncle, bless his sweet little heart, realizes that his family is about to commit a mutiny and just begin to freaking eat already?

Right, so that's how Elite Cafe muffins taste. And what's more, the experience is oddly similar to the huge-family-meal-replete-with-paper-placecards experience.

Le sigh.

Also, today, when my internet didn't work, I called up Bezeq's customer service and yelled at them for 15 whole minutes because they couldn't find my username, real name, or passport number in the system, and therefore couldn't fix my internet.
By the way, my internet provider is Barak, not Bezeq. I just happen to have both tech support numbers written down on the same piece of paper, and Bezeq is the first one I dialed.
While I was on hold because the flustered technician was ransacking the database, I realized my mistake and hung up. Luckily and serendiptitiously, my internet began to work again.

Oops.

Also, today in Morphology, I got to write two paragraphs about allomorphy because (get this) she wanted us to practice paragraph writing in English. (Note that 99% of the students in my classes are ESL -english as a second language- and therefore have sucky English writing style. I make up the 1% of native English speakers.) This is because on the exams, we will have essay questions in which 50% of the question will judge our English spelling and syntax. Which means if I totally bomb the question, I am guaranteed 50% of the mark so long as I bullshit in beautiful, lyrical English.

Excellent.

But the point of this post was not to complain about craptacular muffins or admit my early-morning phone-failures or gloat about how I got it made in Morphology class, but rather to discuss my weekend in Jerusalem!

The parents as well as a few other family members from the Diaspora came in to celebrate my British cousin's second bar-mitzvah, in which he read the maftir and everyone tossed candies at him because we missed the first bar-mitzvah held in England. A good time was had by all, especially me, especially because we went shopping in the Old City. But before my dad became designated as the King of Bargaining in the Arab Shuk (or sook, for the purists among you), my parents and I went down to the Western Wall to attend a tour of the Tunnels 'Neath the City Along the Wall.

To do this, we waited at the main promenade facing the Western Wall without actually going up to the Wall (cause seriously? It's just a wall. Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere...). Now, one of the rules when one goes to the the Wall is that you ought to be dressed appropriately, which means shoulders covered (and sometimes they'll make you cover your arms up to the elbows) and knees covered, no shorts or tanktops permitted. If you are in violation of these rules, you are given a scarf or piece of material from one of the good hearted ladies who has nothing better to do than sit at the Wall, guarding the modesty of the Daughters of Israel, and all the while you are left wondering where her children are or whether she feels that she is living a fulfilled life, sitting out all day with a bunch of rags chasing after scandalously clad women who God does not love if they aren't bundled up. I was dressed fine, in jeans and a vee-neck sweater which also has a vee in the back of the sweater.

Apparently, this is inappropriate, because the good-hearted Modesty-Policewoman came up to me and told me that my makhsof was exposed, and that in front of the Wall, one needs to dress modestly, so would I please take the wool poncho from her to cover it up. Makhsof is Hebrew for 'cleavage' or 'decolletage', (though I suppose literally, 'that which is exposed') and so I quickly looked down at my chest and determined that it was nicely covered up (the vee-neck did not extend far past my collarbone and whats more, i had a tanktop underneath the sweater covering up any unmentionable bits). When I pointed this out to her, she told me that it was in fact the makhsof shel hagav, or the 'cleavage of my back' which was showing. I am not that fat that I have back cleavage, and I definitely only have one pair of breasts, which are located on the front of my body. I asked her if she was serious, and insisting that she was, she thrust the poncho at me and covered up my shoulders.

I would like to point out that my shoulder blades were not showing. It is possible that a triangle of skin on my back, no bigger than my hand, was exposed. Because you know, visible back-skin/cleavage can lead to dancing, which can lead to babies, which can lead to the fiery flames of God's eternal wrath. So thank you, Morals Police, for covering me up with your lice-ridden poncho to keep me in God's good graces.

You know those "Tide" commercials where they talk about "body soil" and the guy's apparently clean shirt starts to crawl all over him like he's ridden with cockroaches? It was like Body Soil Party in that poncho. I still feel dirty, 24 hours later. I immediately switched the poncho for a lighter, seemingly cleaner scarf. But I've probably contracted scabies from the poncho.

*shudder*

Fun Fact!: The word in Hebrew for the blankets one is issued in the army is scah-bi-ahs, which comes from the English word "scabies", because that is what you get upon using the aforementioned blankets. Or ponchos from the Morals Patrol, apparently. This is exactly why I can't handle Jerusalem in more than small quantities.

Question of the day: Is God as opposed to laundry machines as he is to my back cleavage? Thoughts? Comments?

I leave you with a final thought, which should be imparted to the religious women who have no lives and who sit at the Wall all day: When I was in Grade One, and asked for a good class rule, since "don't hit" and "share your toys" were taken, I said "Don't share hats or scarves or you'll get head lice"

Exactly.