Some of you may know I chair the Israel Association of Writers in English.  It’s not a great honor, but I always feel the buck stops here, and if other members don’t manage to fulfill their obligations I’m responsible.  So in the absence of an intern or a secretary I am taking care of postal matters and in the absence of live events, I have taken on the job of sending out the latest issue of the journal, arc, to members and contributors and subscribers.

Having failed to successfully pay for the annual post box fee online numerous times, I made an appointment to go there and check it out for myself.  They do not accept customers without appointments, but the next appointment was for the next day at 7 last evening.  So to make the journey really worthwhile, I wrapped up an arc and planned to see how much it would cost to mail – both locally and abroad.  Now with all the glass dividers and the masks each simple transaction becomes twice as complicated and unpleasant, so I decided to be extra nice and exchanged compliments and pleas and identity cards and credit cards with the teller and the manager before they allowed me to pay – they even gave me a discount for this month and promised that the box was ours for the year.   Then I asked about the price of a simple local mailing.  The cheapest rate was 10:30 shekel.  It seemed so expensive  I was shocked and forgot to ask about mailing to the US and Australia, and left to get home before the storm.  But then I went outside to the mailboxes, and it turned out ours was locked.  I returned to the clerk and listened as he was coached carefully by the manager about how to open the box she had just locked.  But he couldn’t figure out from the inside which box to open, so he asked me to go back outside and knock on the door of the box.   I went out and knocked, but when were finally at the same place, he discovered the lock wouldn’t open.  At last, with much force, he managed to turn the inside key, and asked me to open it from my side to make sure it worked.  Through the tiny window of the empty box, we said shalom and I turned homewards. 

That was when the thunderstorm and hail began. 

When I arrived home – soaked but having managed to keep the receipts dry, I decided that maybe I was spending too much time with trivia.