Planned Obsolescence

I’ve come to expect that being in Israel, strange things will happen (see my Tsfat post). For example, the current situation with the toilet seats in our apartment. First off, we have two toilets. I find this to be strange, for an apartment with five rooms. It’s the sort of thing one shrugs off when becoming accustomed to an unfamiliar environment, though. Recently, one toilet seat broke. Just sort of cracked at the hinges and fell off. No matter! We have a second toilet. Two days later, the second one broke. Now we have two toilets, both without toilet seats. My roommate commented that it looks like a bunch of belligerent frat boys live here.

Possible explanations:

            1)       Planned obsolescence. A common phrase in my family at home, I had to describe it my roommates. Each of these toilet seats had been used 916 times, and was done.

            2)       Act of god. We are in Israel – and the waiver I signed before coming here specifically stipulated that my program doesn’t take responsibility for acts of god. One of us may have committed a sin for which we are all now receiving poetic justice.

            3)       The cat did it. Dinah has proven herself to be atypically both clever and nefarious, always pushing the fragile or valued object off the counter instead of the pencil.

One thing I’ve come to expect living in Israel is that if you are expecting things to make sense, then you shouldn’t. Politics provide a natural example, as well as a lot of little things. At least part of this is cultural relativism at work, but really – if anywhere in the world is poised to encourage strange happenings, it’s here.