A DAY AT THE MALL

I'm not going to go into all of the details of what I experienced at the Big Shopping Center in Carmi'el.

Just take a friendly word of advice: *Never* go to a shopping mall when you're in a heightened state of awareness.

Trust me. Don't do it. I love you. That is why I'm saying this to you.

OK. OK. If you insist. Just one scene from a surrealistic day:

I went into an Aroma coffee shop (all of the stores in the mall are either large national or international chain stores). Just like every other store I'd been in, the behavior of the staff was regimented, stilted, formulaic and painstakingly crafted to create the "ambiance" that the place wants to project - and get the clientele to fall in line with and act accordingly.

When the girl gave me my coffee at the coffee bar, I asked her: "Tell me, just between us girls, at the end of the day are you able to shed the persona and just be?"

In my naïveté, I fully expected that she'd wink at me with a 'we both know this is hype' wink. But nooooo.

Instead she looked at me robotically and said: "Is there something wrong, Madame?" Though what she said was phrased as a question, it meant: "I know I've done everything according to the book, as I was trained. There can't possibly be anything wrong. You are not acting in accordance with the script. You're some kind of troublemaker. I hope we're not going to have to call security." (In addition to the staff wearing their cutesy costumes, there are security people crawling all over the place in these, um, establishments.)

I looked at her and said: "Oh, no, no. Everything is just fine. Just fine. I'm OK. You're OK. This whole scene is perfectly OK."

I walked back to my table, gingerly, and as I drank the conveyer belt, every cup is absolutely perfect coffee; I watched the other customers all behaving as one should when one goes to a coffee shop - all exactly according to regulation.

I sat there and my brain screamed out: SCOTTY!!!

Luckily, a friend came along and gave me a lift to Tzfat.

Now, things weren't always this way in Israel. When I first arrived here my friends and I used to frequent a coffee shop. The third or fourth time we went there the proprietor was playing chess with a friend. We stood there and waited for him to serve us. After a few minutes he looked up and said: "Don't be strangers. You know where the espresso machine is. You've seen how it's done. Make yourselves coffee." At first we were stunned, but then we decided we liked it. We had great fun making the espresso.

Years after that, I went into a place for a quick shwarma here in Tzfat. There were two women behind the counter. I told one what I wanted with the shwarma and she prepared it for me. I said "thank you" and as I held a 20 NIS bill out to her she said: "I don't take money. I'm just a friend. She's the owner. Pay her."

Now, THAT is the way to conduct business.

There are still a few businesses like that in Israel, but they are getting rarer and rarer. Luckily, there are still many in Tzfat.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmai.com