Bitter-Sweet

So there's a store here that T likes to shop at. She's bought quite a bit of stuff there. They sell cheap jewelry, makeup, scarves, hair accessories, etc. On Sunday she went and bought a hoop bracelet there for 60 shekels (~$17). She wore it half a day and it broke. Snapped in two and she said she wasn't being unreasonably hard on it. It was on her arm. She still had the receipt and tried to take it back yesterday. They wouldn't give her her money back (not unusual for Israel - stores here do not have a money back policy) nor would they give her a credit slip.


So after work yesterday I went back with T. We had the receipt and the broken bracelet. There was a man and woman behind the counter. The woman was a real mailto:%21@#$%25, the guy was a bit softer but they both still refused. Accused T of breaking it on purpose. WHY would she do that? She WANTED that bracelet! Then I tried nasty. I screamed at them both, the woman was ready to climb over the counter and tackle me. I shouted at all the other customers not to buy because whatever they buy will break within a day and the shop owners won't make it right. The woman behind the counter called the police at that point - or at least pretended to. I don't know if she really dialed. I told them my daughter earned the money babysitting, money doesn't grow on trees and that they're taking advantage of the young girls who shop there. I told them my daughter would not be shopping there any more and she would be telling all her friends not to shop there any more. They didn't care. It was really nasty. I told the woman, "If YOU bought something - anything - and it broke within half a day, you'd scream too!" There is a new law that came out in December that says stores HAVE to give you your money back for most things if you return it within 14 days and if the value is over 50 shekels. I had a copy of this law with me and pulled it out to show them. They also had it posted up behind the counter. But it does say that you get your money back IF the item is unused/unopened.  How on earth are you supposed to prove that a bracelet is "unused"?! It wasn't packaged in any way. And shouldn't you even MORE so get your money back if the item is defective??  I was PISSED. Still am. I feel like going back in the middle of the night and spray painting the shop windows with some warning to other customers or something! I feel like going back and saying to the man, "You know, I gave up my culture, my language, my family and friends for what? For this kind of crappy treatment?" I feel SO frustrated and helpless. It's just that here there is no such concept of "the customer is always right".


I have to say though that this sort of thing hasn't happened to me very often.

DH set up a yahoo group for our city. You subscribe to the message board for free and it's a good way to find out about stores that give exceptional customer service, you can post there and ask for recommendations say, if you need an electrician or plumber or whatever, or to find out about lectures, day trips, private people selling stuff, if you're hankering after a food item from the old country you can post and ask if anyone knows where to get it, etc.  It's a really useful tool and keeps the Anglos here connected. Anyway, I posted the whole bracelet story to the list and asked people NOT to buy there. There is also a complaints forum in Hebrew that I found where you can post complaints about a particular business in a whole long list of categories so I did that too. To warn people not to buy there.....Nothing will change unless the owners of the store feel it where it hurts.


Today is Memorial Day which is followed immediately by Independence Day. When I first moved here it was SO hard to go from a day of such quiet, sober mourning where everyone is walking on eggshells and close to tears to such euphoric joy and elation on Independence Day. How do you make that emotional switch so abruptly?? But the longer I'm here, the more appropriate it seems. I mean, it's still really hard but it only drives home the fact that we wouldn't have the independence if our military personnel hadn't given their lives so we could have a country. It's almost 11 am here when all the air raid sirens in the country will sound for 2 minutes and the whole country will come to a halt as people stand to remember the fallen. You know, after that experience in the store yesterday I was just so disgusted and felt like throwing in the towel and whining "I wanna go hooooooome!" And yet, at times like this when the whole country is unified during the siren, it's one of those electrifying moments that remind me why I'm here and make me feel that I AM home. There was a siren for 1 minute at 8 pm last night as well with a torch lighting ceremony at the Western Wall with the top government officials, speeches, prayers, families of the fallen and military personnel. We had the TV on and when the siren went off we stood. Which is exactly when E decided to throw a tantrum in front of me because he wanted to watch Baby Einstein and I wasn't putting it on for him! Real hard to enter into the spirit of the day with a kid having a hissy fit in front of you! Geesh!

This past week at her school, T said she had a lot of pre-Memorial Day activities and ceremonies and skits and such. Here, boys are required to serve in the army for 3 years. Religious girls can, but aren't required to. There is another option for them called National Service where they volunteer their time for 2 years doing things like working in hospitals, old age homes, as teacher's helpers in schools, teaching new immigrants Hebrew, working with underprivileged youth, working with special needs kids, etc. That's just for starters. I'm not even up on what the possibilities for them are. So yesterday T tells me that she's decided she does want to serve in the army. Why? Because she wants to wear an army uniform! Talk about lump in the throat time. I don't blame her one bit. It remains to be seen whether that will still be her deicison when the time comes but if it is, I will support it.

I didn't have to serve in the army when I came because at 22 I was "too old". Ha!