Wednesday, November 11th, 2020

A young woman rushes up to me as I enter the supermarket. She waves a six pack of paper towels in the air and asks me a question in rapid-fire Hebrew. I have no idea what she is saying. I tell her I didn’t understand. She repeats the question, almost identically. This time I catch the words for “telephone number.” I think she might be saying that if I give the store my phone number, I’ll get a free pack of paper towels. I did the rewards card spiel often enough in my retail days that I recognize the cadence. I tell her again that I didn’t understand. She glares at me, says “I have to say this a third time?” and repeats it verbatim, at the same speed. I finally wave my hands and squeeze past her. I’m only getting a few things. I look at the clementines, but they’ll still green, quite late in the season. Maybe it’s because the rain took so long to get started. I get persimmons instead. When I get home, I put them down on the kitchen table, right next to another bagful of persimmons that I had picked up yesterday. Oh, well. I sit down at my computer and immediately make a purchase online. I had researched it for hours last night, but delayed getting it until now. I tend to do that with expensive things. Yesterday and today are a sort of unofficial shopping holiday here, where the online shops gang up and offer discounts. I understand that in years past, it was an inducement to get people to shop online. This year, everyone already does. I look for some more bargains, but don’t find anything. I’m told that the selection and deals aren’t nearly as good as before. I add a note to the order form for my purchase asking them to deliver it to my office, if they’re delivering it during the work week. I try putting my message through the online translator, but it keeps timing out. I end up pasting it into the form in English. Someone there should understand. I sit back with a burger, a persimmon, and my TV. Time to wind down.