The heat is on

Summer has been unbearably hot this year. I usually enjoy the heat, but this year seems to be more stifling, and I'm so much more uncomfortable.

The heat also manifests itself in other ways. Take my son, for example. He's been AWOL on and off from the Israeli army for a year. This past week I was off work on a much needed "staycation", and while he was gallavanting around town with friends in the wee hours of the morning, the military police came twice looking for him. They scared the living daylights out of one of my daughters - by banging loudly on the door and shouting - who opted, as a result, to stay the remainder of the week at her boyfriend's house. Maybe I should be thankful for the military police visit? That's one way to get rid of your kids. I felt like I was in some kind of action film, but not getting paid for it. The first visit was at 12:30 a.m. and the next visit two days later was at 2:00 a.m. I'm sure the intruders felt as if they were in an action film as well.

"His bed is hot! His bed is hot!" one burly guy shouted in triumph. They seemed to think they were hot on my son's trail.

"Why is the bed warm? Who slept in it?" he asked me. I insisted that my son left 2 1/2 hours earlier and maybe the hot weather kept the bed warm. Either that or our new kitten had slept there.

My son had left home at 11:30 that evening, and he stays out all night. I asked them, if they wanted to catch him so badly, why they don't come during the day when he is sleeping? They don't do day catches, one of the soldiers informed me.
Too bad. It's your loss, isn't it? They searched inside our kitchen cabinets and other ridiculous places. Meanwhile, their very powerful flashlights shone on the rooftop of our building, on our neighbor's porch - as they thought he jumped from our terrace onto theirs.

My daughter was embarrassed by the fact that they were on our terrace screaming out his name and neighbors in the building next to ours came out in their undies to check out the scene. She began to cry "Look, all our neighbors are watching this!!!"
I tried to reassure her. "Don't worry. Do you really think that if it happened to them, that dad wouldn't be out on the terrace in HIS underwear watching everything?"

Then the group of 5 military police ran downstairs looking for him in the bushes, where all they found were terrified street cats.

My kids called me up the next day when they heard what had happened and asked if we weren't terrified by the night raid. No. Not really. Next time they come, Hubby promises we'll answer the door in our birthday suits and say it's the heat that's bothering us - not them....but they can search as they please...