Illustration by Denis Shifrin

ALL ABOUT SERVICE

HEALTH FUND (KUPAT HOLIM) SERVICES
I found out recently that my health fund - Kupat Holim Maccabi - has a day hospitalization department. Our family doctor was not sure of the diagnosis of a problem, and instead of sending my husband to the hospital, he sent us immediately to this department. There is a proper ward there with beds, doctors, nurses and hardly any waiting around. As this is part of one of the bigger branches of Maccabi, they have the full use of the services of all the doctors practizing in this building. When we left after seven hours, we had seen three different doctors specializing in their specific fields, received treatment and results of tests on the spot, and had all the necessary medicines and referrals for various further tests to be done.

RESTAURANT
One morning I entered a reasonably large café in Ramat Aviv and sat down at a table not too far from the center of the café. Only one other table was occupied. The waitress passed me by a couple of times. After waiting about 20 minutes for her to take my order I got up and approached her when she was serving a table behind me. 
Seeing how long it took to get served, I asked for my bill before finishing my meal and put the sum of the bill on the table for the waitress. When she picked this up she turned back to me and said I had not added the tip. I answered that I understood that the tip was for service and waiting 20 minutes in an almost empty café for my order to be taken was not in my opinion service!

TEN SHEKELS
Amazing what you can sometimes buy for NIS10. The list and the amounts below show how haywire our economy is today. I recently bought all the items listed below for NIS10 or less. 
1 kg. each of cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage for a total of NIS7.96
2 Velveta creams for NIS 9 at Superpharm
2 kg. of fresh whole chicken for NIS 9.98 at Supersol (not per kilo)
2 pretty little tops for a baby for NIS10 at Supersol
3 pairs of colored socks for myself, 90% cotton, for NIS 9.90 in Herzliya
50 large strong garbage bags - 95 x 75 - for NIS7.80 at Rama, Raanana - this has been the same price for the last 5 years or more.

All of the above were direct purchases without any previous obligation to spend a particular sum, except for the chicken for which I had a coupon. You need to be observant and note the adverts and the dates, whether in the newspaper or from the Supermarket itself.

PRESENTS
We attended a family barmitzvah recently where they had a caricaturist making drawings of each and every child. This certainly kept the children occupied, and even the parents joined in eventually, wanting sketches of themselves as a couple or of a complete family. At the bottom of each page was a smaller drawing of the barmitzvah boy.  All this is a very nice memento for your guests. If you are interested, contact Itzik Suissa at 052 594 3178, www.suissa.co.il
Another comment on the subject of bar/bat/mitzvahs: today it appears to be almost de rigueur to bring a check as your present, and somewhere along the line the child gets forgotten. I decided in this case to bring a present. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the hall to find envelopes and cards for filling in in case you had forgotten to do this at home, a very nice safe box for the checks, but NO place for presents. Not even the mother of the boy had thought about that!