Counterfeits

I'm having a really awful bad quality moment - or shall I say a few bad quality moments.

My boss rushed me into work yesterday and I took the bus thinking I would take the 2nd bus inside Jerusalem to get to my work instead of walking 25 minutes. It would speed things up greatly. I handed the bus driver a 10 shekel coin and he looks at it.

"It's not real"

"Whaddya mean it's not real. It's a coin!"

"I'm sorry, I can't take this coin. You'll have to give me other coins"

Well, I had no other coins and no other bills. I'm flat broke. I got off the bus, half humiliated, and walked the rest of the way to work, calling my frantic boss to tell him I'll be 10 minutes late because of a counterfeit coin - which was all the money I had in the world.

Meanwhile, my kids were supposed to close a deal on an apartment they bought the other day and the lawyer they hired told them the builder "slipped in" a few papers she had never seen before, holding them responsible for the rest of the mortgage or having to lose whatever they deposited should the builder go bankrupt. They had been sitting in the office for 3 hours, ready to sign the deal, when voila. They were told by their lawyer not to sign until the other side gets their shit together. What a "bassa"(disappointment).

Back to the counterfeit stuff - I went to one of the stores that may have given me the bad coin. The salesperson immediately gave me a good coin in its place and we figured out together how to notice a fraudulent one.

In a 10 shekel coin - the fakes are lighter and the side is not uniformly lined. It looks sloppy.

In a 5 shekel coin - it looks exactly the same except for the sides again. The fake is rounder and the real ones are octagon-like.

So beware out there of these evil coins.

This morning, hoping for a better day - I got a loan from a friend so I can go to the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival tonight, which has been my tradition for the past 6 years or so, I put on my funky pants from India, got into Hubby's car, and heard "rrrrrriipp" somewhere. The entire upper side of these lovely but awful quality pants were ripped. Thankfully, I'm wearing a knee-high top so it covers the rip, otherwise I'd look like some bag lady with ripped clothing near her behind or - maybe it's in fashion somewhere in the world.