The Sonny Side of Things

We love our empty nest. I must have mentioned this before, but I can't help mentioning it again. Most of the time my daughters are at their boyfriends' homes. Occasionally they spend one day in the week with us and sometimes a weekend. Now that my son is army-bound, he's not home during the week either. He was supposed to learn how to drive and was at his base for 3 weeks. But they - whoever "they" are - didn't put him on the driving list and he ended up staying on his base, bored out of his mind. And when an ADHD kid has nothing to do all day, oy vey, watch out. He calls me during the week, and our conversations are like this.

Me: What's doing?

Him: Nothing

Me: So why did you call?

Him: Nothing. (long pause) The army is fucked up. I'm the only one not driving. They lied to me again this week.

Me: You're still not driving?

Him: I don't want to drive anyway. I want out of the army. I'm coming home.

And I spend every day trying to convince him why staying on his base is a good thing and that the government of Israel should pay for his drivers license, and he should use his Android phone to play more games, watch videos and go on Facebook. But he's miserable and hurt that everyone on the base is learning to drive but him. And there's no one for me to speak with. I tried calling the City Officers' office in Jerusalem which is who you call when you need something, but it's usually a dead end. I call up the office and there's a young girl on the end of the line.

Me: I need to find out why my son is the only one on his base that is not driving. I want to know if he did something they didn't like. Are they punishing him? Can you give me his commander's number?

Officer: I'm sorry but we're not allowed to give you that number. It could be that because he was put into the unit at the last minute that there were not enough instructors. And we need his permission to speak with his commander.

I call up my son and put him on a conference call with the officer.

Me: Tell her you give her permission to talk with your commander.

Son: What the fuck for? They don't care about me!!! They just don't care!!! No one cares. I'm leaving the army!!! I don't want to drive anyway.

I hang up on the conference call and am not even embarrassed that the officer on the other end of the line heard that conversation.

The next day, I'm at the bus stop in Jeruslem on my way home and someone taps me on the shoulder. It's my son. He passed his theory test and was one of the 22 out of over 60 who passed. They all got let out on Thursday for the weekend. He was thrilled to be in the army at that moment. We get off at our stop and cross the street. He spots a group of young under-dressed girls and makes a dash for the bus shelter across the street, hissing at me not to follow him. I see him out of the corner of my eye taking off his army shirt quickly and I'm thinking, - what the fuck is he doing?? Who does he think he is, Superman - changing into his "outfit"??? He runs to the girls. He's wearing army pants and a white undershirt. He knows them and hugs the pretty blonde one with the long legs.

He is no longer Clark Kent.

Jailhouse Rock

"We're going to jail" said Hubby to the kid sitting next to him on the bus, who smiled as one would when you're sitting next to someone you think is crazy. We were actually going on what I've been calling "an adventure" to visit my son in military jail. He turned himself in last week, good boy that he is, and he was utterly despondent at withdrawal from Facebook, Cola, sugar, Samsung Galaxy phones, and his computer. Plus he called me on Friday night, nearly in tears because his Sabbath food was absolute shit. What does he expect? He's in prison.

In order for us to visit him, there's this procedure where you have to pick up this permit slip, with your ID #, allowing you access to visit the jail. I applied two days before the visit to ensure that we will be able to get a permit. The young woman assured me it will be faxed to my office before 10 am the day of the visit so that I'll have ample time to get there.

"Can't you email it to me?"

"We don't have email"

How primitive.

Then the day before the visit, my son calls to tell me he's moving to a jail further north. Way north,near Haifa. Fantastic. Now I have to do this bureaucratic crap all over again and make a new request for a permit. Somehow at that moment, I felt very Palestinian, waiting for details on my permit to be able to enter some place in Israel and not knowing if it will come at all. Looking at the bus schedule, I calculate it will take us 5 hours and 3 buses to get there. We'd never make it by 1:00, our designated visiting time. I had to think fast and knew that the only way to do this was to rent a car. This was gonna be an expensive day out. I get to my work and there's no fax. No permit. I'm livid. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive and I have only 1/2 hour before I need to get on the road. The military office in Jerusalem is not answering the phones.

"They're probably just sitting there drinking coffee while the phone's ringing" said one of my co-workers.

I get to the office and storm upstairs to get my permit.

"You were supposed to have this permit faxed before 10 am to my office. I'm supposed to visit my son today!!!"

"There's no visiting hours today." said the girl.

"What??"

"Only Mondays and Wednesdays"

It was Wednesday and this idiot hadn't a clue what day it was. After convincing her that it is indeed Wednesday she ran to get the thing stamped and off we went, while another person in another office called me on my cell to ask me where to fax the permit. "Sweetie, you're late with faxing and we're on our way."

"But you can't get in without the fax!"

"Exactly. Which is why I didn't wait for you. I went straight to the head office."

By this time, all this bureaucracy was making me dizzy and nauseous.

We drive in the pouring rain and when I say pouring it's like a monsoon, without the strong wind, for a good half an hour and the highway is flooded in a few places. We drive real slow. I'm thrilled that Hubby is a good driver and can get through this. We see a lightning bolt hit a power line and we both jump.

We get to the jail 1/2 hour before 1:00 but it's 1:20 before they let us in and only because some giant gorilla of a man, one inmate's dad, banged hard on the metal door and yelled "HEY!!!! THERE ARE PEOPLE WAITING HERE TO GET IN. WHAT'S GOING ON???" and you'd think with him banging and screaming like that, they'd purposely make us wait more. But I guess force works and in a minute the door opened for us. There was a Druze woman who was visiting her son who didn't want to serve in the IDF at all. She said her other sons did but he, the youngest, didn't want to. After 7 years of being AWOL, they finally picked him up and carted him off to jail. Seven years!!!

We hug our son, who is growing a beard because they took away his electric shaver. We hug him some more and feel sorry for him, but he seems happy. He likes his new jail.

"I know so many people here, my good friend is here and the food is much better than the other jail. I had 4 plates of pasta for lunch! My tent is heated too."

They wake him up at 4:30 in the morning for roll call and he goes to bed by 8:00 pm. Far cry from the all nighters on his computer.

We gave him two chocolate bars, the fancy ones he wanted with the rice and M&M's. That's all he asked us for. Other people came with bagfuls of junk food and home-cooked meals, and it's like a family picnic during a holiday when the parks are full. After 45 minutes an officer tells him visiting time is up. They are strict with time.

Everything we spoke about, he was like "no problem". "No problem this" and "no problem" that. We kind of like this new obedient child of ours.

Grounded

I have to reluctantly admit that I admire the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) at times. For totally different reasons than you might expect. They can do with my daughter things that I was unsuccessful at as a mother. Two examples:

1. Educate her. She dropped out of high school at 10th grade. I couldn't convince her that an education is a good thing. Her principal humiliated her and she wanted nothing to do with school. Ever. Until the army persuaded her that she could go back to studies, under their auspices, and she'll get her high school equivalency that way - with no abusive principals. And now she's in the midst of her studies and is excited to report to me that she is doing wonderfully in Math, History and English but terrible in Geography. For her to be doing wonderfully in any subject is something that the IDF has accomplished and I have failed. Unless she was just ready for learning at her advanced age of 20.

2. Grounding her. Throughout her life, I have been unsuccessful at grounding any of my kids, when they needed to be punished. They would laugh smugly at me, and just either climb out the window or push me out of the way, while marching out the door after I tried grounding them for the usual stuff teens get grounded. I could only shrug and bear it. So with good reason, I felt a tinge of jealousy at the IDF on Thursday when my daughter, who was supposed to be home for the weekend, called to say she wasn't coming because she "had to be at her base."

"What did you do now?" I asked her, knowing that she was in fact "grounded" by the IDF.

"Nothing. It was for something stupid." she answered.

Something stupid? She got grounded for something stupid. And the IDF was successful in grounding her for something stupid? I was green with envy. How do they do that? What is their secret? Is it because they have live ammo that frightens her? Is it jail time for them if they disobey orders? How do they ground my daughter for something stupid when I had trouble grounding my kids for more serious infractions like telling me to go fuck myself? How? Her job in the IDF is shrouded in secrecy. So I may never know their secret for their success.