Operation Bomb Shelter

Yesterday morning my office received a phone call from the IDF ensuring that our bomb shelters and sealed rooms were prepared to be used. At the time of the phone call our two sealed rooms, located next to the elevators, were filled with some nine thousand files as is the norm for a sizeable Law firm. Since yesterday the file room boys have been working tirelessly to empty the rooms and ensure that they are secure in case of emergency. The only issue I have is that unless I am very much mistaken, Hezbollah is not launching a chemical warfare... is it? Therefore, I am thinking, a sealed room is not going to protect me from a Katyusha rocket ripping through our building, and my little sealed room on the fourth floor plummeting to the ground.

It doesn’t matter how safe the HR manager claims it is. In truth, I want to ask her if she has ever thrown a rocket on to the building to check how safe it in fact is, but I try to refrain from being rude to her… I mean she’s in charge of my pay cheque! Anyway, in the privacy of my five people office, I disclose my plan for when the sirens go off. While everyone else is rushing to squash themselves inside one of two tiny sealed rooms, fully furnished with a bucket in each (I won’t let my thoughts go any further than that! Ok I have, but I am not grossing you out any more than I already am!) I plan to head down the emergency stairwell and on to the lower level car park, where I will get into my car and drown out the noise of the explosions and falling debris with the vocal talents of Sheryl Crow. And if that is how my life reaches its end, well “If it makes you happy… it can’t be that bad”!

CB: Yeah that’s all good and well unless it’s playing “My Favourite Mistake”
Me: “The First Cut is The Deepest” or “There Goes The Neighbourhood” would do too…

Speaking of the neighbourhood, it looks like if in the case of a rocket landing in Tel Aviv I will have to find one of the communal shelters in the surrounding areas, which has its pros and cons, I mean the time it takes to get from my apartment to one of these shelters does not fill me with joy, especially as the authorities have stated that the sirens will go off approximately 1 minute before a mortar hits the city. So in the event of the siren going off I have around one minute to firstly hear the siren and then get myself to the local shelter, which is a 2 minute walk away… at least! What if I am in bed when it goes off… realistically it takes me at least a minute to put some clothes on, never mind getting out of the house!

But then on the other hand my friends and I have decided that in the spirit of what to take to the bomb shelter, this is a good opportunity to share our goods… alcohol and drugs are pretty much the list… but what else do you need when the world is crashing down around you? Hmmmm… a guitar maybe? Oooh!!! Any guitar players who live in the Dizengoff centre area, make sure you head to the local bomb shelter… drugs and alcohol will be provided!

Actually this might all be a bit of a problem, as I am currently the walking chemist. No I have not undergone a career change to drug dealer. After my swift recovery from my root canal, I am now experiencing a new tooth problem (my dentist thinks I should save myself some cash and just move into his surgery). I have now got a wisdom tooth causing me no end of grief. What does this mean? Well it means that I am back on antibiotics! Which means that I am back off alcohol and back onto pain killers! No pity please people! Seriously don’t pity the fool! Just sit back and enjoy my ramblings going even more off the edge as I become more and more delusional thanks to the painkillers, antibiotics, ibuprofen, and green tea tablets I am currently taking!

FYI: there is a reason that they do not show clips from Israeli news on CNN! We Israelis in the face of danger prefer to laugh our asses off!
“Hassan Nasrallah is that the best you can do! Loser!... Has the barakas place re-opened yet?” (Typical Israeli Ars from Tiberius smoking a pack of Nobblus cigarettes)

I tell you, Jackie Mason could not have done it better, and this was on Israel’s main news channel! While the Arab world knows that the best PR is woman and children crying and tearing at their clothes, the Israelis prefer to be caught in shot laughing, picking up debris while sucking an ice-lolly… well it’s damn hot here!