Lost and Found

My best friend in Holon, without doubt, is my bus pass. Aside from its flashy and colorful appearance-- bordered by a new and exciting primary color each month, and with a glamorous, sparkling stripe down its middle-- my "chofshi chodshi" (free monthly) is nearly magical in its powers. By simply presenting this lone 2 by 4 piece of cardboard to the bus driver upon entering any Dan or Egged bus in the entire Tel Aviv area, I am suddenly a free woman: free to travel anytime, anywhere, free of charge. (The small catch here, of course, is that the card was at some point in time indeed paid for, before my kind madrichim left it in my grateful hands. But that it might have been paid for sometime in the distant past, likely by my own tuition, is seemingly and blissfully irrelevant when I whiz importantly past the bus driver on a hot and uncomfortable day and sit myself down for an air-conditioned, lazy bus ride.) With my bus pass, I can go anywhere- I can visit the shuk on Allenby or the mall in Rishon or the decorated tapestry shops in Yafo. (In other words, I can go spend money, free of charge.) I can go to and from the gym three times in one day- theoretically I mean, if I happen to be feeling fat, or something. My bus pass is my ticket to exploration, and I can say with a sizable amount of conviction that I- for better or for worse- might know this best.

You see, I speak from experience. Upon discovering the near superpowers of my new handy companion- namely, my bus pass- I decided I would take full advantage of them. And so the experiments began. Where does line one take me? I asked myself, after having lived in my new home in Holon for what I recall amounted to less than a week. I proceeded to drag some poor yearcourse souls with me onto the bus, encouraging them that line one might just take us back from our faraway field trip to our apartments on Eilat Street. That I, with my negative sense of direction, might recognize our brand new neighborhood if we happened to arrive somewhere remotely close was a longshot, but I kept this small truth to myself. Alas, we didn't, and after a long half hour spent sightseeing various streets of Holon through the bus windows, the group of us noticed that we were soon heading towards that formidable, unpromising highway and decided to get off. We were left- a bit dazed from our long trip to nowhere- at a vast and unfamiliar cemetery outside Bat Yam, and from there we left it to the one Israeli with us to find a familiar bus route and take us back home.

Two more such bus adventures followed. One involved taking a long, unintentional detour to Yerushalayim Street in Yafo while seeing if bus 88 would maybe take me home from work. (It didn't.) The next was that time I traveled around Holon at night on bus 92, hoping to at some point arrive at the gym, and instead finding myself in Tel Aviv. The 92, I realized later, is the one bus outside my apartment that does not pass by the gym. Figures. That day, I took eleven buses. Eleven! And I didn't pay a cent. Or more importantly, an agurah.

One might argue that these experimental bus trips were an utter waste of my time. That I was foolish, perhaps, for thinking to get on a bus simply on the blind hope that it might, coincidentally, take me to my exact destination. That I should have at least thought to ask the bus driver before investing hours of my time traveling to mysterious and surprise locations. And these arguments, I concede, would in fact hold some validity- if, that is, I wasn't at all times accompanied by my all-powerful bus pass. I would argue that equipped with my bus pass, my bus adventures (as I would term them) were worthwhile experiments, in which I was able to both see more of my temporary home here, while also learning more about the various bus routes. (Generally, which bus routes not to take, but no matter. Just as worthwhile information.)

I say all this about my bus pass to arrive at a semi-unrelated subject, and that is the subject of my recent, traumatic loss of my wallet. Here is the connection: when I lost my wallet the other day, when I absentmindedly dropped what is probably my most treasured and important possession while on a bus in Bat Yam- it was not my debit card that I later fretted about missing, and not my license or other forms of ID either, but rather my beloved bus pass. While I raced frantically up and down Yoseftal searching for my wallet and making phone calls to various bus companies and family members, questions raced through my mind: How would I get to and from volunteering? Would I stop going to the gym, and go on simple runs instead? And what about going out on Thursday nights: would I be the lone poor soul struggling to keep my balance on a jerking bus while I pay for a short bus ride, while my peers smoothly pass by with their shiny, still-intact bus passes? HOW unfair. And who's the lucky jerk who's probably already found my wallet at this point, and discovered my magical pride possession within. Where will he choose to travel with it. I had to find my wallet.

But I didn't. Bus 46 passed me four more times, and each time I bothered the bus driver to let me on and search quickly for a dropped wallet. Not to be found. I suffered through Dan bus company's on-hold music at least three times before their secretaries managed to forward me the correct number- that is, a number that actually had a voice on the other end, a number that was actually functioning. But of course, as these things always work, that bus employee's search was to no avail either.

I didn't have time for this, I realized with a sigh. There was a yearcourse party that night, and I was going, wallet or no wallet, and (gasp) bus pass or no bus pass. I had just a little more than two weeks left in Israel, and I would enjoy it, even wallet-free. My mom and I devised a plan to get me some cash, we canceled my debit card, and that was that. It would be Ok. (There was no replacing my bus pass, but I thought for a few weeks I could stand a simple cartisiyat noar punch card. Obviously not comparable, and a bit of a sad turn of events, but would have to do under the circumstances.)

And then - the glorious climax to a dramatic afternoon. I received a call from an Israeli woman who asked in her accented Hebrew if I was "Naomi Rena Forman." Indeed I was. Am. My wallet had been located! It still existed, and was in seemingly good hands with this kind civilian. It's a wonderful country. And it was a wonderful party. And the next morning (a little dizzy, but beaming), I set out to the woman's apartment to retrieve my wallet. And here's the best part: when I arrived, not only did she hand me that familiar green leather wallet with the black duct tape, complete with all my receipts and ID cards and emergency phone numbers and my lovely monthly bus pass, but she proceeded to invite me inside to share a drink and chat for a bit. Where did I come from? What was I doing inn Israel? she wanted to know. Would I want to come over for dinner sometime? I learned her story, too, how she came here from Iran when she was just a little girl, how half her siblings live in New York, how she could never move there because of the cold. I told her repeatedly how eternally grateful I was of her gesture, of the trouble she went through to locate me, the "miskenah." Tell your mother you're in good hands here, she told me. We take good care of you here.

And I am. And they do. Even in Bat Yam, where this entire saga unfolded. Bat Yam, the (excuse my terminology here) "Shit hole of Israel," Bat Yam, where crime levels and poverty levels are high, and the people live modest lives (to put it nicely), and a good number of them are total creeps (to put it bluntly). Despite all this, my abandoned wallet rode a bus un-stolen for who knows how long, even with its grand bus pass inside. It's one of those "only in Israel"s, I decided, while reflecting on the whole event on my way home. I try to imagine, but simply can't really, dropping my wallet on the T in Boston and then becoming buddies with my new friend in Dorchester who's located it. It's just something that wouldn't really happen.

So it's with a genuine tear, for sure, that I'll leave this country soon, these friendly, welcoming people, and of course, my bus pass.