This is supposed to be a blog about busking only. However, every once in a while I have a non-busking-related story that I want to share, and the blog seems to be the best place to share it. I hope you enjoy the tale of last week's misadventure!
(*Street name changed to prevent further breaking-and-entering.)
Introduction
In
May of 2012 I shed my accordion and piano dress for a week to bask in
the sun of Israel and visit my dear friend Sarah Yourgrau. My flight
was to arrive in the middle of the day when Sarah was at work, so we
planned that she would leave me the key to her flat on top of the
electrical box so I could let myself in. She sent me her address: 23 Devengal*, top floor, the door on the left. She additionally warned me that
I would be greeted by an ancient pit bull. She promised to leave me a
note!
To be honest, I didn't think everything would go perfectly, since
this plan was laid out by the girl we had to lie to about a cappella
rehearsal time so there would be a prayer of her showing up within the
first hour. It's safe to say that I expected a hitch or two. My plane
landed, and I got on the right train, and got off at the right station.
I held my map in one hand and my cheap plastic Thrift Store compass in
the other, and navigated my way on foot through central Tel Aviv to Devengal St. There was 23, right between 21 and 25! My first error was
that I climbed a few stairs and emerged in a private residence. After
standing around in the living room for a moment, a young man asked me,
"Are you looking for the building?" I was. No problem.
I ascended to the top floor, felt around on top of the electrical
box, and sure enough there was a key waiting for me. I put it into the
door on the left, but the key did not fit. I tried the door in the
middle, but it did not fit either. It fit perfectly into the door on
the right. This was the first time that day I felt like Goldilocks.
"This one's juuuust right!" "Okay," I thought, "That's Sarah's
mistake, she said left instead of right." No big deal. I stepped into
the spotless apartment, quite impressed by the adult level of
cleanliness and decor that Sarah must have developed in the two years
since we'd last seen each other. There was the bedroom, then another
bed neatly made up. Sarah had said she wouldn't have time to make me a
bed, so I inferred that the time must have materialized. I didn't see a
note, but she could have forgotten that. That forgetful Sarah! I
opened the door to the kitchen that led out to the balcony where a gray
and white cat bounded towards me. Hm, that's strange. At this point I
still didn't suspect I was in the wrong flat. The explanation I decided
upon for the feline appearance was that it was a surprise for me!
Sarah must know how much I love cats, so rather than just telling me she
had one, she set my expectations low by lying about the pit bull so I
would be pleasantly surprised upon my arrival. Aw, what a great friend!
Check #1
Despite my confidence that I was in the right
place, I thought I should find some proof that Sarah lived here. In the
preliminary look-around my eyes settled on something that could be
proof: a holographic poster of a unicorn. It was so tacky that Sarah
could definitely own and display it to be ironic! To be sure, I
examined the rows of shoes, and didn't recognize any. That's okay,
she's in a new country with new fashion, she probably has different
shoes. I examined the living room, with a fancy, expensive flat-screen
TV, and didn't see a single book or magazine in English. Hm. I glanced
at the drawer in the bedside table, and opted to not open it unless it
was necessary. You know in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when PW is rescuing
the animals from the inferno of the flaming pet shop, but keeps walking
by the snake terrarium, grimacing, and rescuing something else instead?
It was just like that. As long as there were other corners to
investigate, I could avoid checking the bedside table. I rifled through
the cosmetics and beauty products, looking for an American brand, but
they were all covered in unfamiliar alphabets.
I thought about what I could look for that would put an end to the
mystery forever, and remembered some skills I had learned in the Worst
Case Scenario: Dating and Sex book. Specifically, the "What To Do
If You Wake Up In Bed With Somebody Whose Name You Forgot" chapter
suggests looking for prescription medication, magazine subscriptions, or
luggage tags that might state the owner's name. I looked for these
things, but all I found was a suitcase with a checked luggage label for a
flight from Moscow to Tel Aviv. Would Sarah have gone to Moscow? I
came across a photo of a bunch of women, none of which was Sarah. I was
really starting to doubt her occupancy of this flat. At this point I
ran down the stairs again, feeling around atop every electric box to
make sure I had the right floor, to no avail. I came back upstairs to
go even deeper into this flat's possessions.
Check #2
Not having found anything, I started really
rummaging. I opened cabinets and examined the wardrobe (Counterpoints
shirts?), and looked over at the bedside table once again. There was
nowhere else to look but in there. I bravely opened it, and saw
everything I feared I would see: a lacy red something, a ton of condoms,
and a tube of "Love Gel." Ewwww. There was an envelope. Letter from
Sarah's mom? No, it was filled with money!! Lots of it!!!! Wow!
Still without real proof in either direction, I "hacked" the computers.
Two laptops lay around (both PCs, definitely not Sarah), so I booted
them up, hoping to see a photo of Sarah and her boyfriend on the
desktop. Both were locked, with accounts bearing initials that began
with A. This was my cue to put my clothes back on (I had made myself
comfortable), smooth down the groove that my pack had made on the
bedspread, and book it out of there, feeling like Goldilocks once
again. "Who's been unpacking on my bed/petting my cat/examining my Love
Gel?" Good thing I didn't raid the fridge!
The Search
I decided that Sarah must have given me the
wrong building number, and that the other key was coincidentally there
for those who come in to feed the cat and to partake in the use of Love
Gel. When I hit the sidewalk of Devengal street once again, the guy whose
flat I had entered first was outside with a friend. I asked them if
they know Sarah and Yogev, and they do not. I explained the
predicament, and the guy kindly called the landlord to ask if Sarah and
Yogev rent from him. They do not. Well that clears that up! They
asked why I don't call Sarah, and I told them I had forgotten to record
her number, which was out of reach in my email. The guy invited me in
to use his computer to get her number. Aren't Israelis nice? I crafted
an SMS asking Sarah if she was quite sure she lived at 23 Devengal St.,
and I got a response from T-mobile saying that her number was out of
range. Lovely.
Sarah must have just mistyped 23, so I made a list of numbers it
could be: 2, 3, 32, 21, 12, 34. I tried all of these buildings, rubbing
my hand on the electrical boxes of each one. All the mailboxes were in
Hebrew, so I couldn't seek their names. Numbers 21 and 2 were
construction sites. Number 3 is the Embassy to Moldova. That's not
it! When none of these produced anything, I began running up and down
the stairs of every building on the block, thanking my lucky stars that I
did not have my accordion with me. At this point, my right hand was a
nice shade of black from the decades worth of dust, sand, and mouse shit
I had rescued from the umpteen electrical boxes I manually examined.
Several people on the street saw me wandering around sweating
through my backpack and asked what I was looking for. "Thanks, but it's
not really something anyone can help with," I would tell them. One
nice man asked why, so I told him the misadventure so far, mainly for my
diversion in retelling it. He stood up for Sarah, unwilling to blindly
join me in blaming her, and suggested, "Maybe she didn't mention the
cat and she's out with the dog!" He did suggest I take a break from
entering strangers' homes and have a lemonade with him. Lemonade
sounded good, but my real goal was to get into the Mediterranean Sea, so
I wanted to find the place and get on with my afternoon!
Mega-Happy Ending
It was clear that the only thing to do
was to get in touch with Sarah. My plan was to walk past #23 again,
where I would see the helpful people on the porch again, and they would
ask if I had made any progress. I would tell them that my text to her
didn't work, at which point one of them would offer to text her on
his/her Israeli phone. Perfect! But they were no longer outside, and I
didn't want to take advantage of their help by going inside. Bidding
farewell to the £1.50 per minute T-mobile had promised to
charge me for calls in Israel, I dialed Sarah's digits hoping that this
method would be more successful than texting. Indeed it was! "Hello?"
"Hi! Where do you live???" "23 Devengal St." "Are you sure?" "Yep,
top floor on the left!" "The one with the cat?" "What? No! That's
the Russian cat lady!" "Well that explains the Russian luggage
tags." "Wait, you went in there??" Etc. Sarah promised that the key
worked, that it was the key that she and Yogev used every day. You just
have to wiggle it a little. I had spent several minutes trying the key
in the door on the left, even squinting to examine the bends of the key
compared with the light shining through the key hole. I couldn't
remotely get it in. "Wiggle it a little" my foot. I told Sarah I'd
call her back if (when) I had more trouble.
I climbed the stairs at number 23 once again, picked up the key, and
looked at its shape once again. Then, just for kicks, I put my
blackened hand on the electrical box again. Sure enough, there was a
second key. This was the one box I hadn't thoroughly petted, assuming I
had already located all it had to offer. I turned that key, opened the
door, and was immediately filled with that relieved feeling of "That's
more like it!" There was a big funny note in plain sight, the place was
not immaculate, there were photos of Sarah (but none of me), and a
lovable white canine whom soon got way more of a petting than he
expected in his slumber. I never thought I'd be so happy to see a pit
bull! I threw myself onto the hammock and helped myself to the crunchy
Israeli peanut-butter snacks they had left out for me. Of course Sarah
had made no mistake, and had gone above and beyond in her hospitality
(even if she didn't surprise me with a cat). I later learned that they
are subletting the apartment, which explains why the landlord didn't
recognize their names.
But Wait!
As I got ready for the beach (and ironically did
a search of the correct flat, as thorough as that I had done in the
neighbor's, in search of sunscreen), it dawned on me that there was
evidence of my break-in: the cat! When I went in, the doors to the
kitchen, living room, and bedroom had been closed. The cat food in the
kitchen (which leads to the balcony) suggested that the cat was only
allowed in there, and I had let it wander freely around the flat during
my investigation. And I hadn't closed any interior doors behind me! I
looked at the clock, assessing, from the ample information I had about
the neighbor, if I had time to go back in. Sarah had called her a cat
lady, but was she a crazy cat lady? If she found her apartment
in a state of disarray would she call the police? Deciding that it was
worth it to keep her suspicion at bay, I swiftly picked up her key once
again, looked around, and darted into the apartment. Sure enough, the
cat was luxuriously asleep on the couch, somewhere it was probably not
allowed. Without hesitating I grabbed it, giving way to a perfect
"Reowr!" I heaved the furry rascal into the kitchen, slid the three
doors closed, and left as quickly as I had entered, for the last time.
Later I realized that the computers were still powered up, albeit
closed, but that could have been a mistake the Russian shoe-obsessed,
grocery-not-stocking, cosmetic-refrigerating cat lady made.
Conclusion
I
loved every minute of this misadventure, despite the physical exertion
and confusion. At the end of the day, I am on the road not to see
sights, not to work on my tan, but to gather stories. I could have
boringly walked from the train station and picked up the right key the
first time, but then the image of entering Sarah and Yogev's apartment
for the first time would hardly have been memorable. It is experiences
like this that maintain my excitement to travel, especially on my own
(since a smarter travel buddy could have ruined the fun by finding the
other key right away). Although it cut into my beach time, this search
gave me a taste of Tel Aviv architecture and the kindness of strangers,
and it taught me that I ought to give my sometimes-scatter-brained
friends more credit. The best part was retelling the quest to the
residents of 23 Devengal, top floor on the left, and hearing that amazing
laugh that I had traveled so far to hear. And if nothing else, the cat
across the hall was slightly less dusty after the ordeal! And if I see
some lost Moldovans wandering around, lost, I'll be able to direct
them to their embassy. Shalom.
GREAT story! I love a good adventure :) Carry on, Sophie!
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