When Jerome, the protagonist of the book Three in One Boat, encounters signs from beach authorities seeking to charge a fee for a piece of beach that is not theirs at all (sound familiar from the parking lots on our country's beaches?), he is filled with intense anger, and his desire to take the following actions becomes strong.
I quote: "At the sight of these signs, my anger burns within me to the point of destruction. They arouse in me the darkest and most animalistic passions. I am attacked by a strong desire to tear the sign from its place and nail it to the head of its owner, to beat him with a hammer until his soul is gone, and then to bury him and place the sign on his grave as a monument.".
Below is Harris's reaction to the sight of these signs, and the plans he was formulating for their owners, but out of the reader's delicacy, I chose to skip Harris's seminal text, and instead pick up the gauntlet and present those 35 people who also succeed in igniting my anger to the point of corruption, and who arouse the instincts of the bestial and the vile, etc.
1. The woman in line at the supermarket. As she finishes her slow grocery shopping, she locates her huge purse among the many bags, opens it for a long minute, and then pulls out a checkbook.
2. The old women who start the sentence: 'I always say.'.
3. The elders too.
4. The ultra-Orthodox guy who appears in every ideological debate with the winning sentence: "So how do you explain that the rabbi... doesn't say that? Why doesn't he know that? Why do you disrespect the great ones?" (Response: oppressive silence from everyone present).
5. The bearded guy who tells the doctor in line that he just needs a prescription, so he doesn't have to wait 56 minutes like everyone else (it turns out he knows the doctor. The Russian, by the way, never smiled, but he actually hugs him and the two spend 14 experiential minutes together as bursts of thunderous laughter are heard from inside the room).
6. The women who say obvious things. The conversation has been disconnected for some reason, and then they return and say in a thoughtful voice: "Disconnect." You look at a piece of jewelry whose label shows the annual budget of the Tel Aviv municipality, and the woman says: "Expensive, eh?""
7. People who borrow books from you (who has ever gotten that item back?).
8. You discover a nice book at your friend's, and you also notice thick cobwebs among its pages. Then, when you ask to borrow it, your friend tells you: "Oh, I'm just in the middle of reading it." Sure.
9. People call early in the morning, say around 9, or late at night, say around 9 - and say: "I hope I didn't interrupt." (What do you expect to hear? You interrupted, but if you already called, what?)
10. The fastidious old man at the supermarket who doesn't pay the cashier until everything is bagged. You find yourself packing sugar-free cookies, yeast, baking soda, salted peanut butter, low-fat milk, Olive Tree margarine, and Patty Bar cookies. The old man gets mad at you and yells at you not to mix the Patty Bar with the baking soda. Why? You ask, what's the problem, and then you realize you've become a co-conspirator in the old man's boring life at the supermarket.
11. The people who meet parents of a disabled child and tell them: "God gives trials, He also gives strength.".
12. Those who ask the bereaved in comfort the surprising question: "Was he sick? When did he last talk to you? Did he know he was going to die?" In exchange, they state: "Oh, he smoked, oh it was birth damage, didn't he suffer?" And the positive answers to these questions somehow reassure them, and they are convinced that they probably won't die. The fact is that they didn't smoke and they didn't have birth damage.
13. The young man who keeps crying at a funeral signs that he has lost his son. It eventually turns out to be a neighbor who moved out years ago.
14. The entire family admires one of the family members who is considered the "wise one" of the tribe. They consult him in fateful hours, and his opinion is considered before every important decision. And it's not you.
15. The preacher who says at the beginning of his speech: "The truth is that I didn't prepare" - and then he doesn't shut up for an hour.
16. The assertive woman at the supermarket, or at the doctor's, who comes out of nowhere and says: I was here. I just went out to run some errands. In Eilat.
17. Old women who dress immodestly.
18. The elders who argue with their friends over petty and embarrassing matters in the synagogue and on the way to and from it, and one of the elders is your father.
19. Those who know Gafni, Deri, and Guterman, the least bad: those who know Ya'alon, Lapid, and Netanyahu's assistant.
20. The Haredim who know exactly who Yonit Levy is, and what the words 'Ulpan Shishi' mean. On the other hand, in conversations with you they don't reveal their cards until after they discover that you're in the same boat, as if to say, 'If you see it too - we're in the same secret community of viewers who don't betray each other.' To whom exactly?
21. Those who love Baruch Goldstein.
22. Those who don't understand what the problem is in the previous section.
23. An experienced friend tells you that it's really not worth begging a police officer to forgive you for the ticket. "It only turns him on," he says. The next day, you encounter a police officer who discovers that you drove without your lights on, and like a man, you tell him in a deep voice: "I was wrong, sir, but I ask that you go easy on me and let me off with a warning." His response: "Please sign the ticket here.".
24. You go to the changing rooms at the beach, to the mikveh on Shabbat evenings, and you put your clothes on a hanger. Then a hairy, ugly, and repulsive man comes and puts his clothes, all his clothes, on the hanger where you put yours. Why?
25. Synagogue on Rosh Chodesh. The worshippers arrive at the Hallel and pray with the cantor. However, he revealed that he was the grandson of Yosla Rosenblatt and began to sing "Ma Ashiv Lah" in a thin, playful voice. The audience joins him, gnashing their teeth and trying to speed up the melody, but the fool at the pillar insists on dwelling on the subtleties of the melody, and continues from there in a musical sequence to "Praise the Lord.".
26. The child is completely ready for kindergarten. Dressed, groomed, and primped. Keys in hand, door open, and then it turns out - he did.
27. Eat the chicken, is it good? Why don't you touch the rice? The disgusting one who sat next to you at the wedding, and wouldn't stop pestering and peering at your plate.
28. A doctor is walking down the street. He just wants to go to the tambour store to buy a paintbrush. Every time he meets someone in 'barely familiar' status, he has to show him a disgusting pimple and ask him what he thinks. At the store he asks him The seller If there is a danger of smelling paint, and an old French woman who knows his wife tells him about the back pain she suffered from last Saturday.
29. You are standing in line at IKEA or at the secular supermarket and the clerk asks: Would you like to donate ten shekels to the Tobias Foundation? You refuse and feel the secular eyes staring at you: stingy ultra-Orthodox, free food.
30. You want to cut off a car on the road, and you have no desire, as an Israeli would ask for permission. You glide slowly, and look ahead intently, as if you don't notice the ugly act you just committed.
31. The happiness that attacks you when you hear that someone unexpected is facing a divorce: What is he getting divorced? But you couldn't see anything. The happiness.
32. Children whose parents remarried, and as is often the case, additional children were born. The tactless and characterless man approaches one of the children and asks him: Which mother are you from? The one who died or the one who got divorced?
33. The man who made the mistake of his life and said to his wife: But I help around the house (you are 'helping', really, thank you very much, etc.).
34. The rabbi who lost his eye, and in every encounter with him, they try to identify which of his glass eyes is his from the years. This dilemma, we must admit, makes it difficult to concentrate in conversation.
35. They attribute every success they, or their children, have to their own miraculous abilities, talents, and effort. They pass on the failures, troubles, and misfortunes that befell them in life to God: "Everything comes from above. What do we understand by the accounts of heaven?""
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