Yet another reason to make aliyah

I'm sure I'll catch hell from my lovely wife for airing our (her) dirty laundry in public, but this is too perfect a glimpse inside Israeli culture not to share.

One day late last year I was going through the day's mail when I noticed that Zahava had received her renewal notice for her driver's license.  I tossed it across the dining-room table to her and was somewhat annoyed to see her push it aside as she paged contentedly through the copy of 'Self Magazine' that had just arrived.

I didn't want to make too big a deal of it because experience has taught me that my lovely bride does not respond well to pressure.  So before I went back to my dinner I gently reminded her to take care of renewing her license right away.

The process here for renewing one's license is actually quite civilized and painless: 

You receive a renewal notice in the mail a couple of months before your old license expires.   You take this renewal notice to any post office, and pay the renewal fee.  The post office clerk records the payment... stamps both halves of the renewal notice... sends one half to the Government Licensing Bureau telling them to send you your new license... and returns the other half to you to be used as a temporary license in case your new license doesn't arrive before your old one expires.

Like I said... it's all very civilized.

So you can imagine I was a little concerned when I walked into my wife's studio a week or two later and saw the renewal notice sitting untouched on her desk.

The phrase I think I used was, "You know you need to take care of this, right?"

What my wife probably thinks she heard was, "What the hell is wrong with you?  I told you to take care of this and now here it is weeks later and you are totally going to forget about it and they'll take away your driver's license and throw you in jail!"

Like I said... Zahava doesn't respond well to pressure.  :-)

The end result was that Zahava chased me out of her office with one of her exasperated ' just what kind of an incompetent idiot do you take me for?' looks.

Fast forward six months to last week.  I got a phone call at work from my wife which started out like this:

"Honey, you're going to be so angry with me..."

Anyone who has ever heard those words from a spouse automatically starts checking off items on a mental list:

• House burned down?  Nope, caller ID says she's calling from the home number.
• Car wrecked?  Who cares... if she's talking to me she's OK.
• Missed the deadline for filing tax return?  Nope, I signed the returns weeks ago.

All this and more flashed through my mind in the millisecond before I answered, "What?  What happened???"

There was a long pause before she said, "You know how you were after me to renew my license last October?  Well my license expired at the beginning of January, and I just realized I never renewed it."

I don't know what kind of an explosion she expected, but I couldn't muster even a shred of anger.  Heck, the only reason I'm such a pest about reminding Zahava to deal with this kind of thing right away is that I am at least as absent-minded as she is... probably more-so!

But regardless of how understanding I might be, the State of Israel was quite another matter.  Her license had expired almost four months ago!  I began imagining stiff fines and Zahava having to go into the Licensing Bureau to deal with endless, well, bureaucracy!

Not wanting to make her feel any worse than she probably already felt, I made an excuse to get off the phone and left her alone with the problem.

A short time later the phone rang again and it was Zahava sounding decidedly more up-beat.  Instead of taking a bus into Jerusalem to throw herself on the tender mercies of the Misrad HaRishui, she had done what every good immigrant should do before allowing themselves to become a total frayer (sucker); she called up an Israeli neighbor and asked for advice.

It turns out that the Israeli Government assumes that many (most) people will procrastinate and forget to renew their licenses on time.  So they give a generous grace period (either 6 months or a year... I'm still not sure) during which all you have to do is bring your renewal notice to the post office... pay the regular fee... and POOF!, you walk out with your stamped form/temporary license, no questions asked! 

And like magic, within a few weeks your permanent license arrives in the mail as if you hadn't suffered some kind of mental breakdown that caused a four month delay.

Look, I know I'm often tough on the Israeli bureaucracy here on treppenwitz.  But honestly, how can you stay mad at a government office that assumes you are going to procrastinate and miss every deadline... and makes official allowances for such sloth?!

Think about that the next time you're waiting on line like cattle at the DMV!

With all its faults, I love this country.