I. Never Pay Asking Price

So I’m making guacamole, because I can,

which really means because I bought an avocado

in the shuk for two and a half shekels. But I can’t break

this bargain fruit open until

assured it won’t go brown.

I need a lemon.

So I head out to the market, a woman

on a mission. The first fruit stand I see,

nada. This particular shmoe

doesn’t sell lemons. Moving on,

jackpot. I take

my time pretending I know

how to pick a good lemon. Finally place one in the

translucent plastic bag that comes

in yellow, pink or blue, and wave my arm

under the guy’s nose. He weighs it, grunts:

fifteen shekels.

I feel myself asphyxiating on the citrus air around me

and the flies are closing in and I think I may need to sit down-

until I grab control of myself- I’m nobody’s sucker!- and seize

the opportunity to practice

my Hebrew with a key phrase my friend taught me

for just such situations.

In my most indignant tone I spit, Ma, ani frayarit?

and storm away, lemonless.

 

Turns out, my friend tells me later,

there’s been a lemon shortage the whole year.

 

II. Drink Lots of Water

I’m walking through the shuk when I’m hit

with this craving for diet coke. (I have a diet-coke-

drinking problem.) The first store I see is

a liquor store, so I pop in for a six-shekel

fix. (Liquor stores here

follow the mentality that alcoholic

content or not, drinks are drinks.)

Of course I forget that this was the store

I had been to last week to buy wine

for a Shabbat meal. The clerk was slimy, like

the dead fish juice spilled all over the shuk floor.

Motek, he said, kamah yafah at. Yesh lach chaver?

Sorry, I don’t speak Hebrew.

It’s true, my Hebrew isn’t perfect, but I understood him

perfectly. Now, I see the same slick head of gel, his eyes

fall on me and he cries, Hallo, hallo, motek!

About-face.

 

That’s one way to kill an addiction.

 

III. Money is Worthless Here

On the way home from work, I find myself gripped

by a desire to be healthy, so I stop by a random

fruit/vegetable stand and pick out two sweet

potatoes, two apples, two cucumbers and an onion.

I’m only one person, but I need to eat too.

Take my goods to the register,

seven shekels. Beautiful.

Take a fifty out of my Anne Klein wallet,

hand it over.

Ma zeh?
the clerk asks.

Money.
What does he think it is?

Small money you don’t have?

No.

If I had it, I’d give it to him.

Ach, get out, go, go, no big money here!

 

I’ve never actually been thrown out of a store

for trying to pay.