The Power of Genetics

Disclaimer: Due to various complaints regarding the subject and nature of this post, I felt the need to add a note. This post was meant to be humorous. No one was hurt (emotionally or physically) in the process of writing this post, or at any later point in time. Don't worry about the mental state of the person who wrote this post, even after realizing that certain genetic inferiorities are in fact valid, the truth is that this person has many more superior characteristics that foster a high level of self-esteem, probably higher than your own. Enjoy!

Today I realized just how genetically inferior I really am. It all started when a friend stopped by my room and curled her tongue. Next thing you know another person curled their tongue and then another person, until there was just me, except I can't curl my tongue because it's a genetic trait, which apparently my father (who can curl his tongue) didn't feel like passing down to me. He also didn't feel like passing down a lot of things. I have a whole list of them, entitled "things my father didn't pass down to me genetically (just to spite me)".


 1) His aptitude for standardized tests (his SAT score was at least 200 points higher than mine- mine was still good-fyi) and languages (he studied Latin, German, and Hebrew. I studied Spanish for 6 years and the only thing I remember is Como estas? And don't get me started on my Hebrew.


2) The ability to calculate equations in his head- to this day there's still a little pencil in my head that writes down all the equations- and you know what, it's subject to error and extremely inconvenient.


3) His memory- he used to be "somewhat" photogenic and I used to have a "somewhat" normal memory


4) His hatred for sweets- this would have come handy especially during my overweight awkward years (9-14, 18-19).


5) His ability to snap his fingers. Yes, that's right, some people have a lot of trouble doing this.

6) His scrabble skills. I don't like to talk about this one very much because it makes me sad :(


Now this isn't completely fair because my father did give me a lot of his traits, like his ridiculously curly hair - which I kinda like ;), his weirdness (although thankfully not his morbid sense of humour), his tone deafness, his complete lack of artistic talent and his myopia. My mom contributed her hyperopia and lazy eye- like the myopia wasn't enough, and I'm not sure if this last one is actually accurate to say, but I kind of blame her for making me lactose intolerant, since she told me that all she craved during her pregnancy was dairy. So thanks mom for using up all my lactase while I was still in the womb!

But seriously with all of these genetic flaws it's pretty amazing I can function as a "somewhat" normal human being. Maybe if god had planned this person better I wouldn't be questioning his existence all the time. I bet he didn't think about that, but he should have since he's supposedly omniscient.

I'm a Toys R Us Kid

I find myself singing part of the toys r us theme song at least once a week, "I don't wanna grow up I'm a toys r us kid", but instead I change it to "I don't want to get up I'm a toys r us kid" or "I don't wanna go to work, I'm a..." because I'm usually singing it on Sunday morning and I think how I don't want to go to work. The thing is I actually like my job because as for jobs it's quite decent. The people are nice, the work is interesting, and they give me lunch money which kind of makes me feel like a toys r us kid, but who am I to complain since I don't want to grow up and I want to stay a kid, at least as much as a 24 year old can stay a kid.

I've given it a lot of thought recently and I've decided that I'd like to stay 24 years old until I feel that I've accomplished everything I want to at this point in my life. I don't think it'll be too difficult, I just need to become successful doing something I love, complete a novel, a book of short stories, read 500 more books this year, lose 10 kilo just for my own pure vanity, travel around the world, get a dog, and I'm sure there's so much more- (I'll think about it and add it to my Chanukah wish list). All of these things that I would really like to do are things I want to do while I'm still young and the amazing thing about staying a kid is that you can continue to push off these things until the end of time, which is what I've done most of my life.

But the problem is that as I get older I'm supposed to do all this other stuff,  "grown-up stuff", stuff I'm just not ready to do- like get married, start a family, own a home and keep it clean, and work because my family (the one that I'm not ready for) needs the money. I know it's bad but all I can think of in response to this is, "eww". And yet for some reason, so many people I know are getting engaged or married and I just don't understand it. I'm happy for them because that's what they want, but the concept seems so foreign to me. Maybe it's the fact that I just see today's adults as  (physically) big-little kids acting as grown ups- boys putting on their fathers' suits, girls putting on clown makeup and dressing in their mothers' high heels (and not knowing how to walk in them). Am I delusional? Or is it just that as I'm getting older, I realize how we're all just kids acting as adults because that's what we've been taught to do. But then again I was carded at the supermarket last week because the cashier thought I was under 18- so maybe it's just me.

FYI- there are Toys R Us stores in Israel and they're super lame!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJJ-ZLdrTwY

Why don't you just stick your foot in your mouth?

I tend to put my foot in my mouth all the time, it happened more often always in the U.S. because people are usually more careful about what they say due to the obsession with being politically correct and the worry that you accidentally offend someone. However in Israel, most people are rather blunt and while they would offend people outside of Israel, most Israelis pay no attention to it. But what happens when you're an Israeli who's trying to say "the right thing"? Usually, you end up putting your foot in your mouth. 

Case in point, last Wednesday when I was at a tapas bar with two friends, let's call them friend A and friend B, and our waiter was trying to console friend A after she said it's difficult finding an Israeli guy. Now this is something I  disagree with because in my opinion, Israeli guys make their intentions quite obvious to girls. So obvious that if I had some of my top adjectives to describe Israeli guys are flirty, easy, and slutty.

So the waiter tells friend A, "You're a beauty, that's why it's difficult for you." Now of course the waiter might say this just to get a nice tip, but the truth is friend A is very attractive. So the waiter goes on again about how Israeli guys are intimidated by such beautiful girls. I was expecting the waiter to say that "beautiful girls, like you all (since there were three of us sitting there)," but he didn't. He said how guys will approach other girls, less attractive girls. So according to this logic, I have a boyfriend because I'm easily approachable and I'm easily approachable because I'm unattractive. "So wait, we're ugly?" I ask the waiter. 

He says, "Oh no, of course not." He can tell that he said something wrong, so he tries to make up for it.  "It's just that you're both friendly looking, you know, you smile. She doesn't smile." So now the waiter has gone from calling friend B and me unattractive to then calling  friend A unhappy and unfriendly. At this point, it's in his best interest  to stop talking, but he's Israeli so he just continues. 

Real issues in Israel

I'm sick of people ranting about silly things that will never be resolved like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I prefer ranting about problems that can actually be resolved, as well as issues that directly affect my life and the people around me, like awful customer service, horrible drivers, people pushing their shopping carts into my ass at the supermarket as if they couldn't see it (come on, really it's not small), and especially one of the most important issues here is that the bars suck.

Why Israeli Bars suck?

1) Cocktails are ridiculously expensive. Cocktails usually range from 40-55 NIS ($11-$15), which is absurd since the average salary in Israel is only 7190 NIS/month before taxes.  That means the average Israeli will be out of money for the month after ordering about 120 drinks (this includes tips). One hundred twenty drinks a month is not enough to drink away your sorrows and I'm sure those that are only earning 7190 NIS/month and paying rent in Tel Aviv have a lot of sorrows.

2) The bartenders don't know how to make drinks.  Even simple drinks like a rum and coke or gin and tonic. The ingredients are pretty straight forward but for some reason the drinks are either extremely watered-down or the bartender will take the order too literally and give me a bottle of coke and a shot of rum or a bottle of tonic water and a shot of gin. I'm pretty sure they take some kind of bartending course which teaches them how to pour two drinks together, but who knows maybe I'm wrong?

3) The bartenders really don't know how to make drinks. Recently, my company set up a cute little bartending course for the employees. The bar was really nice but the bartenders were absolutely useless. I remember they were teaching us how to make a mojito. The ingredients according to the bartender were: rum, nana, sprite, sugar, and a lot of lemon. Since the mojito is one of my all-time favorite drinks, I knew that this bartender was full of it. So I stopped him and I said, "don't you mean lime?" To which he replied, "This is how we make it in Israel." I'd accept this statement as long as he didn't misinform people to begin with. If he started out by saying, "Hey so in Israel we don't use lime because we don't really have it here, so we replace all drinks that have lime (which are a lot) with lemon" then it would be cool, but the fact that he's telling people that this is "the proper way" to make this drink is just infuriating. And I don't even want to get started on the sprite!

For all those interested, the real ingredients are: light rum, mint, soda water, sugar, and lime.

4) They know nothing about wine. I really know almost nothing about wine, but for some reason in Israel I look like an expert. So let's travel back to my last story of the company event. When we first got to the bar, which I should mention is actually at the bottom of a wine shop, I asked for a glass of wine. And I asked the bartender if he had any from Binyamina, specifically Yogev because I've bought bottles of Yogev  in the past from the shop upstairs. And he said, "well actually we don't have the wine that we have upstairs down here."  Then I asked, "well what do you have?" And I get the response I always get at a bar, "we have red and we have white." And I'm thinking, "No shit Sherlock." So I ask, "do you have any Shiraz?" To which he replies, "Yeah...Israelis don't really drink wine so much." Yeah, I don't really know what to say about that since this bar is actually part of a wine shop. I guess Israelis don't walk into the shop to buy wine. Shocking that the shop has been there for awhile now even though it must have absolutely no customers at all considering that "Israelis don't drink wine". So my reply was, "Wow, you're really not a good bartender, are you?"

My plan for making bars really awesome- Just a few suggestions

1) Raise our salaries please ;) And lower the cost of alcohol. Why is a glass of wine more expensive than a bottle in a supermarket?

2) Have a bartending course in which Israelis learn how to make and mix drinks.

3) Teach bartenders the basics about wine, (like, Chardonnay and Riesling are white wines and Shiraz, Cabernet and Merlot are red wines.)

4) Also try serving the drinks that are on the menu. If the menu says Bellini with Prosecco, why do you say you only have Cava? Seriously, can we all just admit the truth that Cava is Prosecco's really uncool (and overrated) little sister from Spain?

5) Teach bartenders to be nice to the customer so the customer will want to give a tip. I mean, Hello, I'm American, we're using to giving at least 20% tips, usually more to bartenders.