Priceless

In the interest of being a good neighbor I have avoided any mention of a certain couple since the great beehive wars of 2005. 

Seeing as it is only a few days after Yom Kippur one would think I would continue with that trend. 

But one would be mistaken.

There is a basketball hoop in the courtyard outside our garden gate where many of the neighborhood kids (including ours) gather to play ball.  The location (OK, the very existance) of the basketball hoop caused a bit of a flap a few months back, so in the interest of appeasing certain elderly [read: difficult] neighbors, the parents of all the children who use the hoop got together and agreed on specific hours when kids could - and couldn't - play. 

That should have been that.

However, kids being kids... they sometimes stop dribbling a few moments after 2:00PM... and toss a few anticipatory baskets a second or two before 4:00PM.  It doesn't happen often... but it does happen.

This elderly couple must sit by the door staring at the second hand on the clock... waiting for such violations of the neighborhood playtime treaty, because every single time this happens, one (or both) of them springs from their front door like a jack-in-the-box, screaming at the offending kid(s).

Well, the other day a young boy from the neighborhood committed the cardinal sin of actually bouncing a basketball 30 seconds before four o'clock, and suddenly found himself being roundly harrangued by an indignant elderly woman.

So there she was... hands on hips... screaming down at this little kid (in Hebrew),  "Don't you know it's forbidden to play between two and four?!"   [Ata lo yodeah sh'asur lisacheik bein shtayim l'arbah?!"]

The little kid stood there like a deer in the headlights, not knowing what to say... but finally responded plaintively, "But I'm not between two and four... I'm six!" [Aval ani lo bein shtayim l'arbah... ani ben sheysh!"]

Do you remember that scene at the end of 'How the grinch stole Christmas' where the grinch's heart, which had been "two sizes too small" grows and swells, and finally bursts the frame of the window through which we are viewing it... and then he returns the sled full of toys to Whoville, and everyone lives happily ever after?  Do you???

Well this was nothing like that.

She was so shocked by his response that she stood and glared at this little kid for a full minute, unable to think of anything else to scream at him.  Apparantly this sweet little boy's innocent misunderstanding of her rant completely threw her off her game. 

In frustration, she finally just turned around and stormed back into her house.

I may buy that kid ice cream and krembo for the rest of his life.