A Jewish Grandmother : The Return of The New Umbrella

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Return of The New Umbrella

For some very peculiar reason I have this reputation at work for having "a good memory." There are routine things I'm good at keeping, like making my food for work and bringing the meals. In the three years I've been working at Yafiz, Sha'ar Binyamin I left it home only once. I'm also the person who is considered to be the "one who knows where everything is."

But the truth is that there are aspects of "memory" in which not only don't I excel in, but I fail abysmally. One of the reasons I left teaching was that I couldn't remember the names of all the students in my classes. I somehow managed when I had tiny groups of four to eight students, and I taught them, the same kids, all four years they were in high school. But there was no way I could remember three or four classes of twenty or more names.

I generally bring everything I need to work, and one of my tricks is to pack early, so I have time to add what was forgotten. I try to make a routine out of it.

This winter there hasn't been all that much rain, but it did rain last Thursday when I was on my way to work. On Wednesday I threw out a broken umbrella when I was in Jerusalem, and on Thursday I took the new one that I had bought a couple of months earlier. It protected me when I was walking to the bus. It was wet, so I put in on the floor of the bus by the window right next to me.

I was just as I got into the store when I realized that I had forgotten it. I mentined it to my fellow workers and they were horrified.

"YOU! You never forget anything. How did it happen? Who drove you?"

They were more upset than I was. When I told them what type of bus I took, within seconds one of my friends had the head of the "company" on the phone and told him to trace the driver and leave the umbrella where she could get it.