Mall is in parenthesis because I am from New Jersey, after all, which is the mall-capital of the universe, and what Israel calls a 'mall' is sometimes more of a run-down...area...of commerce. I had picked up a Fisher Price mobile on said outing- a bit of a mistake because it's not electric and therefore needs to be wound every 60 seconds (as if I didn't have enough endlessly repetitive menial tasks on my plate right now?)
Anyway, I needed to replace her clear-colored-and-therefore-totally-invisible-and-easily-misplaced pacifiers, so on the way out, I headed to the pharmacy. FYI babies know the difference between pacifiers and have preferences, so it's a good idea to addict your child to a replaceable model.
The female employee at checkout was a bit intimidating- she seemed like she had just finished her army service. She scanned the 2-pack of pacifiers, gave me change, looked up at my baby in her stroller, and then kept the pacifiers on her side of the counter. She then began the interrogation:
"How old is she? Why would you get these for her??"
(was she referring to the objectionable act of giving a baby a pacifier to begin with? I started to shrink. It took me a minute to figure out that she thought my 6-week-old was older than the 0-3 month recommended age for that particular pacifier- she's big. I stuttered that she was only a month and a half.)
"Is this for now? Are you going to give her one now??"
(she had noticed that my baby was agitated. I stuttered that, yes, I was. I wondered what she was getting at.)
"WHICH one are you going to give her now?"
(I stuttered that it didn't matter- they were identical, after all...)
She disappeared with the pacifiers I had already purchased- ten dollars for a 2-pack, by the way. I was just standing there with my agitated baby, a now-agitated mommy. I wondered if she was tattling on me to the Misrad Ha Briut (ministry of health) for some yet-unknown parental offense.
She then reappeared with both pacifiers out of the box and slightly damp. She explained,
"I just wanted to sterilize them first. I boiled both of them." Then, she complimented my baby for being so cute.
There's a famous metaphor for Israelis- they're compared to cactuses ('sabras' in Hebrew) because a cactus is prickly on the outside and soft on the inside.
Posts
2 comments:
That is classic. I was scared for you while reading that, but very touched at the consideration of the employee. What a sweet gesture!
But, ten dollars for two pacis? Yeesh. I don't remember how much a paid for Moshe's, but that seems steep. Maybe the sterilization is included in the price?
Well Avent pacifiers are an imported product here and as such, cost literally double what they would in America. And then your baby spits them out as you're boarding the bus...
Post a Comment