Apples

On Friday evening, I purchased some food and beverages for the program's Dead Sea trip and unexpectedly had a slight mishap. My roommates and I shop at a little convenience store near our home and have grown to endear our grocer and his brothers. Let me take a moment to describe him, Abu Majdi and his brothers. Abu Majdi has voluminousness white hair that is considerably longer than any older Arab man that I have seen. He has a sharp long nose, a kind countenance and always wears a name tag that says "Abu Majdi" and is punctuated with a Word document smiley face.

Since I had procrastinated much of my afternoon away by catching up with good friends, I was hard pressed for time when my roommate awoke from her nap and was ready to go out on the town. I scrambled to Abu Majdi's store and whisked through the isles finding all of the fixings for a great trip picnic. Of course, this included fresh fruit such as apples, grapes, and a watermelon. I also purchased a large pack of six liters of water which was surprisingly heavier than I anticipated. The store attendant who I can only assume is one of Abu Majdi's nephews or sons, asked me if I had a car. To that I responded that I would get stronger by carrying all of the items down the hill by myself. Little did I know that I had WAY too much confidence in my strength and abilities.

As I was carrying everything down the steep hill to my home, the water became to heavy for me and I absentmindedly set it down along with all of my groceries. Immediately, six of my eight apples rolled out of their bag and hurtled down the hill bumping and bruising along the way. I tried to stop them with my hands and feet and utterly failed. I'm sure it was quite the sight for those that observed me.

Generally, the neighbor kids are little hellions. I often seen them as pests, especially the little boys with their mischievous grins, but this night, I was quite grateful for them. As they were racing up and down the street with one roller blade per child, they chased and snatched up all of the apples and brought them back to me. They each took turns dropping them into another big black sack that I had and asked me if I needed any more help. I thanked them sheepishly and told them that I would be fine. Another young teen asked me if I needed any help and I thanked him for his offer and kept going. I am grateful for the simple gestures of kindness and concern that the rowdy little boys in my neighborhood demonstrated and will be a little less critical of them when I pass them wreaking havoc on the street.