28/12/01

The Quest For Knowledge

Out of all the Israelis in the world, why is it me they always call for an opinion?

    I think it started the time I was on the way to the Bustan Tea Party. Osrat Bustan had asked me to bring a cream pie. I was out the door with two bags of garbage in one hand, the pie, my keys and a hat in the other. Took two hurried steps to the car. And sure enough:
    Ring-g-g-g!
    Every time it happens, you think, "happens every time," though it doesn't really. Most of the time, definitely.
    Nothing else mattered: I had to answer that phone!
    This is another of those unexplained mysteries of the human condition. I read somewhere they made a study. They found a tribe of cavemen out in Wawanesa, I think it was, that was cut off from civilization for the past 85,000 years. Scientists were rushed over there, they plugged in a phone, it rang, and sure enough, all the cavemen went rushing to answer it. Some of them may even have dropped their hats, like I did, right into the cream pie. (And the keys into the garbage.)
    But the important thing is, I got to the phone in time.
    Yes, I know, the smarter ones among you are wondering, "Why didn't he just press the call-back button?" I'll tell you why: Because I don't know what it is. I tried it once and I got the fire department. They insisted they hadn't called me, I pointed out they must have, and they said never to bother calling them again.
    Anyway, nothing else matters, because I got to the phone before they hung up.
    "Hello! Hello! Hello!"
    And I got an earful. I have no idea what the woman was saying, because it was in Hebrew, which is generally not a problem for me, but it was unbelievably fast Hebrew. All I heard was: "Dp." It was that fast.
    I explained, carefully, that I am an idiot, and would she please explain her business, and fast, because I was in a rush, but slowly, so I could understand.
    She blurted that she was unable to speak slowly, but she would get her supervisor.
    Supervisor?
    "Good evening, sir," said the supervisor, who also spoke fast, but in English. "This is the Bizbuz Public Survey Institute, and we're calling to --"
    Madder'n hell I was, and I let her know it. "Thanks to you I have a creamed hat!" I shouted, and hung up. 
    On second thought, that was not the first time. I suppose it started weeks before that, while I was watching ג€œTitanicג€ on TV. It hit some ice (the ship, not the TV), and just then the phone rang. Talk about bad timing. I raced all the way to the bedroom to answer, missed by a millisecond, raced back to the movie just as the phone started up again, so I raced back, and when I missed it a second and then third time, I sat next to the phone, ready to pounce should they try again. I knew they would try again, because this sounded like an important phone call. (Why else would they keep calling back?)
    Sure enough:
    "R-"
    I snapped up the receiver even before the "-ing."
    "Yes, yes, what is it, I'm here, what happened, is everything OK?!"
    "Dp."
    The worst of it was, I have no idea if the boat sank.
    That was the first time I heard from Bizbuz, but certainly not my first telephone survey call. There are several thousand such companies, and whenever they embark on one of their vital quests for knowledge, I hear from them on the very first day. That is because my name begins with an alef. (That is generally a good thing. For instance, whenever I am on a sinking ship, I am always one of the first to be saved if the rescue is carried out alphabetically. That may explain why there are more alef people alive than tav people.)
     I don't know if the surveyers always go all the way through the Jerusalem phone book to Tatsana Bontwee, the last name listed, but when anyone wonders what the average Israeli is thinking, these torrid talkers start at alef, my personal letter. Assuming they're not interested in the responses of the hundreds of Abu's, or others not necessarily considered average Israelis, they get to me a lot sooner, and a lot more often, than blissfully unperturbed Bontwee.
    Some day I'm going to call the Tatsana Bontwee household and ask if they ever get surveyed. Probably not.

WHEN I first arrived in this country, I used to be thrilled to get such a call. It was a big deal when I got any call back then, but I truly got a kick out of being asked what I thought, ate, didn't eat, drove, who I would vote for, how much my home is worth, how old my kids are, and what shul I don't go to. As I recall, they used to have a slow-speaking halfwit on hand to deal with immigrants.
    I was fully cooperative, polite, friendly, and usually asked the lady if she was married. (They always said they were.)
    In time I began to realize that these surveys are nothing to get excited about, because every Israeli is, in fact, a public survey institute.
    I decided, as a matter of policy, never to cooperate again with those nattering nosy nudniks. But it turns out, Bizbuz has a policy too: "Nothing can stop us."
    If I had opinions, they were going to get them from me. This is, after all, a democracy, and they have a God-given right to know what I think.
    It was on the news when a new brand of chocolate-flavored wafer hit the market, and within an hour, my phone was ringing.
    "Which is your favorite brand of chocolate-covered wafer, how many people in your household, and what level of education do you have?"
    Well, I showed them: I plunged the phone into a pot of boiling water. They'd be crazy to ever bother me again.
    But when Shas threatened to bring down the government (this wasn't on the news, because it happens four times a day), the phone rang.
    "Did you vote for Shas, and if so why not, have you ever had arthritis, and do you read pornographic magazines?"
    So I disconnected my phone.
    The first I heard of the latest development in the peace process was when the phone rang. It wasn't even connected, and I didn't even have to answer it.
    "Do you prefer peace or war, have you purchased Toilet Duck in the past six months, are you fat, and why did you disconnect the phone?"
    When it comes to Bizbuz, I prefer war. I went to the army surplus store and bought an air-raid siren. It had previously served the entire Negev.  Now, I couldn't wait for Bizbuz to call.
    When it was announced that the dollar had gained two agorot on the shekel, the phone rang.
    Oh boy!
    I picked up the receiver, pressed the air-raid siren to it, and let 'er go. Boy, was it loud.
    "Are you crazy or what?" It was my landlord.
    The last time I heard from Bizbuz, I answered the phone only because I didn't know what I was doing, because I was asleep.
    "Uuh," I said.
    "Good morning, sir!" Well, it was morning, albeit 3:30.
    They had brought back from retirement the slow-speaking halfwit. That completely fooled me, because in my social circles, everyone speaks Hebrew like that.
    "Who'zat?" I mumbled.
    "Marilyn Monroe. If I may ask you, sir, are you married, do you enjoy sex, and would you like to spend a week with me in Tahiti?"
    By coincidence, I had been dreaming of Marilyn Monroe when she called.
    "Uh-huh," I said. At that point, my brain woke up. "Are you really Marilyn Monroe?"
    "No, I'm Osnat from Bizbuz. We'd like to know --"
    "Yeah? Well I'd like to know why you won't leave me alone. I don't got no opinion, I don't know nothing, I don't own nothing, I don't buy nothing, the answer to everything is no, and if I may ask a question, how do you people always know the worst time to call?"
    "But --"
    "Wait, I'm not finished. There's laws against people like you harassing people like me, and even if there's not, I happen to be acquainted with a few suicide bombers with alef names who would probably murder all you survey people for free."
    "But, sir, that's --"
    "Shaddap! My landlord's deaf, my hat's creamed, I'm half nuts from your persecution and now I'll never get back to sleep! You people have ruined my life!" 
    "But sir, that's the reason I'm calling. We'd like to know: In your opinion, why don't people like telephone surveys?"