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Rehovot Bed Saga: Weizmann Wonder Wander
By Erin Israel
"Picture, if you will, your mattress. In fact, go take a good look at it. Does it have springs? Is it pleasantly squishy when you sit on it? Does it have (sniffle) a quilted top layer? Would flipping it require the better part of a morning (and a stiff drink)?
Then I envy you.
One morning in May, the phone rang shortly after breakfast with a call from the Housing Officer.
"How old are your beds?" she asked.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
"Your beds. What numbers are they?"
"Our beds are numbered?" I asked, gazing into my empty coffee cup. It was not yet nine o'clock in the morning. "How fascinating."
I thought I heard her groan. "Well, go look, please," Olga demanded.
A brief search revealed that our beds were not numbered, but that we had enough dust under there to land Martha in therapy for years. I dutifully returned to the phone to report some, but not all, of this.
"They aren't numbered," I said.
"Ohhh..." said Olga with a ruminative sigh. "That means you have old beds."
"Really?" Our beds were older than numbers. How about that. "And?"
"We will replace them. Soon." Then Olga hung up. I went into the bedroom to glare at the beds.
"You're not long for this world," I told them. They lay there stiffly and ignored me.
Picture, if you will, a hard futon. Now imagine it sliced horizontally in half and lopped into four feet by six and a half feet dimensions. Two of these "mattresses" comprise our bed. When we moved here, for weeks, I dreamed that I was camping. That's how hard they are.
In essence, the "mattresses" are no more than Very Ancient Foam, with a thin layer of harder, sturdier foam on either side. They may indeed be older than most things on the planet, and certainly most things known to mankind. However, it could be worse: one professor told us that, when he stayed in our apartment complex in the 70's, he slept on a straw mattress.
For the last five months, I've asked the Housing Officer when the beds would be replaced. First, it appeared that the looming Disengagement was too intense a subject of discussion for anyone to merit reflecting on such mundane matters as new beds. "When all that dies down," she told me, "come back."
After Disengagement, I went back (not wearing orange, the anti-disengagement color, of course). Now the complex was beginning to build a fence, and, on that day, workers were pouring concrete near the Housing Officer's office. She shook her head sadly. "What can I do? Come back when this mess is over."
This week, I went back, on a routine laundry-token run. I inquired hopefully about the beds, since there was no evidence of any concrete pouring or socio-political upheaval taking place near the office.
Olga leaned back in her chair. "Well, you know about the problem with the management... We will deal with the beds after that dies down." She looked at me intently. "You know, it's a complex process: we must find an empty apartment that we can switch the new beds out of, and switch yours into."
"You mean there are empty apartments with new beds in them?" I asked. "Right now?"
"Yes," she sighed. "And it's a matter of rearranging, and reorganizing, and... Very difficult. In a week, after everything dies down, come back, and we'll see."
I gritted my teeth, picked up my bag, and headed home, where I shut the bedroom door so I couldn't see the beds.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps I have been going about this the wrong way, all along. In a country where a cartel runs the banks and the Prime Minister's son has been convicted in a graft scheme, bribery is an obvious solution; indeed, a lifestyle! But a tiny bottle of Austrian liqueur for Olga, when we returned from Europe in July, was clearly insufficient, and -- given without cynicism -- ineffective. Surely, if I'd baked a cake for Olga way back in May, we would have new beds by now.
Is this how bribes work? All I have to do is bake something? I shall commence the Betty Crocker for Beds campaign next week, then.
In the meantime, send me your best cake recipe."
Source: Erin Israel. "A-va-KAYSH luh-da-BAYR eem ha-muh-na-HAYL." "I want to speak to the manager." (7 November 2005) [FullText]
"Picture, if you will, your mattress. In fact, go take a good look at it. Does it have springs? Is it pleasantly squishy when you sit on it? Does it have (sniffle) a quilted top layer? Would flipping it require the better part of a morning (and a stiff drink)?
Then I envy you.
One morning in May, the phone rang shortly after breakfast with a call from the Housing Officer.
"How old are your beds?" she asked.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
"Your beds. What numbers are they?"
"Our beds are numbered?" I asked, gazing into my empty coffee cup. It was not yet nine o'clock in the morning. "How fascinating."
I thought I heard her groan. "Well, go look, please," Olga demanded.
A brief search revealed that our beds were not numbered, but that we had enough dust under there to land Martha in therapy for years. I dutifully returned to the phone to report some, but not all, of this.
"They aren't numbered," I said.
"Ohhh..." said Olga with a ruminative sigh. "That means you have old beds."
"Really?" Our beds were older than numbers. How about that. "And?"
"We will replace them. Soon." Then Olga hung up. I went into the bedroom to glare at the beds.
"You're not long for this world," I told them. They lay there stiffly and ignored me.
Picture, if you will, a hard futon. Now imagine it sliced horizontally in half and lopped into four feet by six and a half feet dimensions. Two of these "mattresses" comprise our bed. When we moved here, for weeks, I dreamed that I was camping. That's how hard they are.
In essence, the "mattresses" are no more than Very Ancient Foam, with a thin layer of harder, sturdier foam on either side. They may indeed be older than most things on the planet, and certainly most things known to mankind. However, it could be worse: one professor told us that, when he stayed in our apartment complex in the 70's, he slept on a straw mattress.
For the last five months, I've asked the Housing Officer when the beds would be replaced. First, it appeared that the looming Disengagement was too intense a subject of discussion for anyone to merit reflecting on such mundane matters as new beds. "When all that dies down," she told me, "come back."
After Disengagement, I went back (not wearing orange, the anti-disengagement color, of course). Now the complex was beginning to build a fence, and, on that day, workers were pouring concrete near the Housing Officer's office. She shook her head sadly. "What can I do? Come back when this mess is over."
This week, I went back, on a routine laundry-token run. I inquired hopefully about the beds, since there was no evidence of any concrete pouring or socio-political upheaval taking place near the office.
Olga leaned back in her chair. "Well, you know about the problem with the management... We will deal with the beds after that dies down." She looked at me intently. "You know, it's a complex process: we must find an empty apartment that we can switch the new beds out of, and switch yours into."
"You mean there are empty apartments with new beds in them?" I asked. "Right now?"
"Yes," she sighed. "And it's a matter of rearranging, and reorganizing, and... Very difficult. In a week, after everything dies down, come back, and we'll see."
I gritted my teeth, picked up my bag, and headed home, where I shut the bedroom door so I couldn't see the beds.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps I have been going about this the wrong way, all along. In a country where a cartel runs the banks and the Prime Minister's son has been convicted in a graft scheme, bribery is an obvious solution; indeed, a lifestyle! But a tiny bottle of Austrian liqueur for Olga, when we returned from Europe in July, was clearly insufficient, and -- given without cynicism -- ineffective. Surely, if I'd baked a cake for Olga way back in May, we would have new beds by now.
Is this how bribes work? All I have to do is bake something? I shall commence the Betty Crocker for Beds campaign next week, then.
In the meantime, send me your best cake recipe."
Source: Erin Israel. "A-va-KAYSH luh-da-BAYR eem ha-muh-na-HAYL." "I want to speak to the manager." (7 November 2005) [FullText]
Labels: Weizmann Institute
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