{"id":14,"date":"2004-11-25T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-25T11:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=14"},"modified":"2009-12-29T12:40:24","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T10:40:24","slug":"in-de-nile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2004\/11\/in-de-nile\/","title":{"rendered":"In De-Nile"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the hardest things about living in Israel for Western immigrants is not having access to the vast consumer marketplace we grew up with in North America.<\/p>\n
I know, that sounds pretty trivial and maybe even a little petty. After all, we are living in another country<\/em>. We freely chose to put 5,000 miles between us and the nearest Disney Store<\/a>. But sometimes it can be downright hazardous to your health.<\/p>\n For example, last week my phone headset<\/a> broke. I use this simple audio device all the time to keep my hands free to take notes when I’m interviewing people long distance for the various newspapers I write for. <\/p>\n No problem, you say. Order it online. Or head on over to the nearest Fry’s<\/a> or Best Buy<\/a> and pick up a new headset.<\/p>\n Except that the superstores that make life so convenient in North America just don’t exist in Israel.<\/p>\n Ah…Fry’s. I like to call it conspicuous consumption on steroids, but that barely begins to describe the place. <\/p>\n The Fry’s I used to shop at in the “old country” is something like three football fields long and maybe as many wide. Fry’s started off years ago selling electronic gear for geeks. Now they hawk everything from music CDs to refrigerators, 42-inch plasma screen TVs to candy bars.<\/p>\n And, yes, telephone headsets. Racks and racks of them.<\/p>\n Well, while we don’t have Fry’s in Israel, we do have Office Depot<\/a>. I headed on over to our local store. I still had a good 90 minutes before the 4:00 PM interview I needed to conduct by phone that afternoon. I figured it would take a couple of minutes to sort through several models.<\/p>\n I figured wrong.<\/p>\n “Ein lanu<\/em>,” the perfunctory Office Depot clerk said. Meaning, “We don’t carry that.” <\/p>\n How could that be? I was sure I’d seen them at the Office Depot before…no, wait a minute; that was in Los Angeles<\/em>.<\/p>\n “Maybe try the Home Depot<\/a>,” the clerk offered. It wasn’t far. So off I went, from depot to depot. <\/p>\n