sword

Giving presents is always an interesting experience. The idea is to give something nice, but completely unexpected. A present that will actually get a reaction when opened. I remember this story that we read in school a while back. (Pardon me if I don't remember all of the details, this was in my time in third grade, which would make this over eleven years ago.) This girl's birthday was approaching, and she had this nice record collection, but their record player was kind of old, so she would go over to her friends to play them, and in the meantime, she repeatedly dropped hints that she wanted a record player. Her parents pointed out how expensive record players are. (Look, eleven years ago, OK?) But, she's sure that her parents bought her one, nevertheless. So, her big day comes, she unwraps her gift, and finds-a puppy.

It's a third grade story, so of course, she's ecstatic, and everybody lives happily ever after.

So it affected me. I don't like to give people the normal presents. Giving somebody a Parker pen for a birthday present, no matter the price, is a bit trite. My cousin's birthday, I gave him an ancient Greek coin. It doesn't have to be pragmatic, just be different than what was expected.

So, my brother's best friend came up to Israel for his Bar Mitzvah, and I wanted to find him a present. So I found this really cool samurai sword in Betaq Tikva. The problem was that I bought the sword a good two and a half months before the Bar Mitzva. This may not sound like a big deal...but don't forget, this is the place where everybody is stoned out of their mind.

One day, my roommate, Yussi, who is part of the program there, got depressed, drank half a bottle of tequila, ran, grabbed my sword, and started chasing people with it. We finally managed to wrestle the sword away, which is something I incidentally don't think anybody should start practicing. After which point, he went back to the room, where people were still waiting outside the window laughing at him, and he was still screaming that he was Zorro, and that he would get them all. So, we tried to calm him down in the room, at the point where we thought we had him sedated, he jumped up, ran to the closet, grabbed his bullets, ran to the window, began screaming that he was no longer Zorro, now he was Rambo, and he started throwing Uzi bullets at everybody outside.

Another time, a kid in our group finally got sick and tired of the sheer laziness of the group. So, he ran into my room, stole the sword, and started fiercely dangling it in front of his countrymen's sleeping faces. Hen that did nothing, he brought it to there necks.

It's a rather intimidating piece of cutlery. It's about four feet long, double edged, and has medieval decorative tassels on it. So, whenever the sword was brought out, virtually the same conversation would transpire.

""�� �� ���� ���? [Shel me hacherev hazeh?] (Whose sword is that?)

"���." [shelly] (mine)

"��� �� �� ���� ��� ��?" [Lama yaish lecha sackn cazeh po] (Why do you have that kind of knife, here?)

" ��� ���� �� ����" [Zote matanat bar mitzva.] (Bar mitzva gift.)

"��� ���� ���?" [Ha bar mitzva shelcha?] (your bar mitzva?)