It is a holiday, followed by my leaving early Thursday morning as soon as the holiday ends, and so of course something has to go wrong with the apartment. Something has to go wrong when no one is going to come and fix whatever it is. Either the hot water heater has died or the electric has shorted out at the hot water heater. Not sure which but whichever it is, it is a darn cold awakening. The hot water heater worked fine yesterday early evening when I heated water to wash dishes and mop the floor.

This morning I got up early and put hair colour on my hair so that when I give my talk I don’t look like a skunk and am nice and non-skunky for the holiday. The stuff has to sit on your head for 45 minutes which is the exact amount of time the hot water heater generally needs to heat up. So as soon as I finished shmearing it all over my head and, of course, getting it all over the rest of me and the floor and so forth in the process, I flicked the button to turn on the hot water. The light did not light. Hrmmm, I thought to myself. Hrmmmmmmmm. Maybe the electric circuit has turned itself off, I thought hopefully. So on went a robe and I crept out into the hallway to check. They all looked fine. I turned them all off and back on again anyway. I came back in and flicked the switch. The switch went up but no light came on. Well, I thought, rather desperately hoping, maybe the little light on the switch just has gone out and it is heating away.

45 minutes later I got a very very cold and rude awakening. And I had to endure the cold and rude awakening for about a half hour as I tried to get the gunk off my hair. I didn’t really succeed, I don’t think.

I’ve already learned my lesson that people who come out to fix things on Shabbat are worse than useless. I imagine that people who would come out to fix things during the High Holy Days would be even worse than uh worse. Does anyone have any suggestions for someone in Tel Aviv who is good at fixing hot water heaters, either during the H.H. or otherwise? I imagine it will be a week before I can get anyone in and in the meantime….ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no no no, I want my hot water!