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Bomb squad guy was actually very understanding after I stuttered that I was totally jet-lagged.

By JUDY LASH BALINT
policecar88 (photo credit: )
policecar88
(photo credit: )
'Judy, where's your head?" asked the plainclothes bomb squad officer, whom I barely stopped from blowing up my car on a Jerusalem alleyway the other night. Only two hours had passed since my arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport from Seattle after 19 hours of travel. After dumping my bags at home, I met my son for dinner so we could catch up on the past few weeks. I parked the car and we wandered off for some nice kosher French food that you just don't get in Seattle. A few hours later, turning the corner as we walked back to the car, I saw my white sedan sitting in the middle of a small street just off Rehov Emek Refaim surrounded by some serious-looking bomb squad guys all holding weird black equipment. The head honcho, a tall, hefty type, was about to punch a hole in the car roof with some kind of special hammer. The whole scenario played out in slow motion as I ran down the street shouting, "Stop, stop, it's mine." Bomb squad guy had obviously run my plates, addressed me by name and questioned my sanity. It's a stick-shift car and I'd forgotten to pull the hand brake when I parked. The car had slowly slid out into the street and the neighbors had come out to take a look. When they saw a wire dangling from the driver's seat - the earpiece from my cell phone had slipped out when I left the car - the vigilant German Colony residents had called the cops and now my car was about to be bashed in to make sure it wasn't packed with explosives. Bomb squad guy was actually very understanding after I stuttered that I was totally jet-lagged and had been driving an automatic car for the past couple of weeks. He called off his helpers, started packing their gear back in the van, told me to get some sleep and to be sure to move the rocks he'd placed in front of the wheels to stop the car from sliding further. Oh, and then he wished me a "Brucha haba'a habayta" (welcome home). The writer is author of Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel (Xulon Press). She blogs at http://jerusalemdiaries.blogspot.com.