A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Israel

Prior to becoming an Israeli citizen, I always used the VIP service when I landed. I hate lines. I inherited this trait from my father who I suppose decided never to wait on line again after Birkenau. I remember how embarrassing it was going to six flags and my father pushing us forward whenever the people in front of us were looking the other way.

Once, we went to Disney World with the kids and my parents. The kids wanted to go on the Dumbo ride, arguably the worst ride in Disney. My father offered to take the kids and my wife and I figured we had an hour to be alone. 10 minutes later the kids come back with my dad.

I asked if they went on the ride, they said yes.

I asked if the line was long, they said yes.

I asked how they went on the ride so quickly, they said Saba went on the special line.

Back to the VIP service. Since we have gotten Israeli passports there is no reason to get the service. We land, go to the kiosk, scan the passport and away we go. I tell you it is worth becoming Israeli just for this perk.

This last time we arrived I decided to get the VIP service as we were bringing in ( smuggling) a lot of things for our impending grandchildren. My experience has been that we don't get stopped when we do this. Liron picked us up and we started walking to the baggage carousel. He asked where I was from and I told him Herzilya and that we had made aliyah at the beginning of the year. He asked where did I make aliyah from. I told him Manhattan. He looked at me and said " Are you an author?".

Now, I have been called many things in my life but never an author. In fact, my wife thought this was one of the funniest things she has heard since she thinks I am barely literate.

" No, I am not an author, why do you ask". He said, my wife is reading a book about someone who made aliyah from Manhattan to Herzliya. I said that's interesting, can you get me the name of the book. He texts his wife and she sends back a link to this blog.

Now I know how to write the blog and send it. I also know there are people who read this blog that are not on my email list. I just don't know how they get it. That said I never expected someone random would be reading it.

So I would like to give a shout out  to Tanya. Liron said she was supposed to have a baby any minute so בשעה טובה or if you gave birth מזל טוב.

The end of the story is we got stopped.

Interestingly enough, that story is not what I had started out to write about.

In Time Out New York magazine they have a small section of things people hear on the street. These include such gems as "I only like cocaine because it smells so good" and "with some of my matches on Tinder I can see on which days I was lenient". Well I over heard something this week that I need to share.

I was sitting in a pizza store, in New York, having a late breakfast. There was a table of businessmen in a discussion at the table next to me. One guy was giving a price on an item. The other guy said it was too high. Then he said ' look I need to buy these items right. Lets say the משיח comes tomorrow. I will need to sell my inventory quickly and move to Israel. If I don't buy at the right price, I will lose money.'

I thought this was the funniest and most horrible thing I have heard in a long time. Old Aaron would have interrupted and given a holier than thou speech , which I can now do, since making Aliyah makes me holier than most of you. New Aaron decided to write a blog post about it.

Not to pressure but you don't have to wait for the משיח to come here. Although the weatherman called for a day of rage here today and Hamas has opened the gates of hell, again  ( thanks a lot Donald) , things for the most part are pretty good here.