Everyone has a "what a small world!" story - here's a pretty good one that happened about 1/2 hour ago which I thought good enough to share.
I was standing in the street vacuuming my car - an activity that I hadn't done for a while - last Pesach would probably be a good guess. As I'm stood there a girl comes walking across the street looking pretty lost. "Excuse me, I have a request which is going to sound really weird" (in unaccented Hebrew) - from experience that's generally a bad start to a question. "I've just moved in here and I've completely forgotten where the apartment is - do you have a phone that I could call someone with?"
As questions go that's amongst the weirdest I've had (and I meet some interesting people). I smiled and passed her my cellphone. She started talking to someone in perfect American English and from what she was saying it was clear that she was not totally in the wrong part of town. "What address do you need to get to?" I asked (in English). When she told me I was able to point to a block literally across the road and off she headed. That would have been the end of it had two things not happened at the same time; my wife came out of the garden and the girl looked back as she reached the corner 7 metres away. "(My wife's maiden name)?" called the girl. We looked up in surprise as she identified herself.
It turns out that not only did she know my wife but that she was at our wedding. Her parents, good friends of my in-laws, have rented a place across the road from us for Pesach. "I have to go say hi - nothings burning inside" yelledd my wife and off she went to pay her respects.
We live a little off the beaten track - yes it's Jerusalem, but we're not in the middle of Rechov HaPalmach or anything. I figure the world doesn't get much smaller then that.....
Gilly
3 comments:
Gil, you're one of the best bloggers, really. But this story just doesn't impress me. Why? Well, you're Jewish. Jews invite everybody to their weddings! I've not Jewish but I *know* Jewish people, and I've been invited to MULTIPLE times more Jewish weddings than non-Jewish weddings.
Maria,
One fact which my husband neglected to insert was that this girl's family and mine had lived in the same city over 15 years ago, and she was best friends with my little brother when they were 5. She was at our wedding in liue of her parents, who couldn't come from the States. She had not seen me or Gilly this entire year exluding our wedding. Does that clarify a bit?
Cheers, Mrs. Gilly
That is a good story. I liked it.
It is a small world indeed.
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