Falafels and Zohans: A Year in Israel

Through the wires..

I'd always been a pay-as-you-go type of girl, loyal to her battered old-school Nokia with its simple functions and no strings top-up service. But after my third 8310 model broke something shifted.
Maybe it was the new job in advertising, where a mass of account executives twirled around the office with their latest gizmos. The fact that we were handling the campaign for the new Nokia N95 didn't help. The slogan 'It's what computers have become' shone out from every available wall space. Part of me also thought I should grow up a little bit and commit to something that didn't require me to whip out my credit card every few weeks and frantically key in a million digits to acquire £10 call time. I was ready for something a little bit more intense: 300 minutes and 200 free texts every month for a directly-debited-out-of-my-bank sum in this case.

So it was a particularly satisfying Friday evening in January when I declined the weekly opportunity to spend a few too many hours sampling a few too many white wine spritzers and instead headed home to get comfy with my new Nokia 6111.
Hours were spent exploring every shortcut key, polywhatsit ringtone and gloriously pixellated display menu, followed by hours spent texting every person in my address book and marvelling at how the message envelope leapt off the screen in a brief but beautiful moment each time.
OTT? Possibly. But I felt like I'd been shopping in Mark One your whole life and had suddenly been elevated to Marc Jacobs quality. More importantly, with every lump sum that was extracted from my bank account each month I felt my financial credibility soar, like I was in a twisted Loreal advert as I strutted down the street, a little arrow above my head with the words 'she's paying monthly, she's worth it'.

Not so satisfying however is it when, four months later, having decided to pack up my life in London and relocate to Tel-a-viv - which I shall start abbreviating as TLV for practicality's sake - I've realised that I still have eight months' bills left to pay out for my shiny new friend.
Although I convince myself there surely must be a way to suspend the contract during the few months I'm away - I did after all agree to pay monthly insurance - there's a little voice at the back of my head that chants 'no there isn't, you've been had you mug'. Ringing the network confirms my worst fears. They are 'sorry to say' that my dual-band insurance package is a step below the tri-band version - and then the news they are even more 'sorry to impart' (I doubt this very much); by bailing out on my shiny Nokia I'll incur over three hundred pounds' worth of outstanding costs to pay. Shut up little voice.

I put down the receiver, newly reflective. After all in a matter of weeks I am leaving behind friends and family, the people who have been my life for the last two decades and as much of a loss this disconnection may be, it demands no payout and only the safety that we shall e-mail and skype each week until I return. Try to leave behind a piece of fancy metal and speakers after four months and you're left with something resembling a mini divorce settlement.

The power of bloody advertising (or shall I say working in advertising). As I write out a cheque for the damage however, things start to look up. Maybe I shouldn't have succumbed to a fancy phone and let its expense seduce me to the extent it did. But no matter. I'm about to say goodbye to the people that are my daily oxygen supply and journey elsewhere and think that's pretty grown up. Soon I'll be away from the throngs of city suits and their portable Everythings.
A land where the cleaners use their God-given sense of timing with which to check on the toilets and not a Blackberry. It sounds just perfect.