A Moment of Levity

I know, I know, your TV screen is filled with images of the Israeli army marching through Lebanon. I know--it's enough to put a girl on edge. What will happen next? Will we survive it? Will our children have drinking water? All that stuff.

But here's a nicer thought to think whenever you next find yourself watching CNN and chewing your fingernails:

A friend of a friend, a short Englishman with Jewish tendencies (apparently, you get them from your mother), finds himself taking citizenship in Israel because of some dusky beauty that he's determined to marry. And off he goes, zzzzip: He's In the Army Now. And in one of the early lineups, he hears this: "You, Sussman. You'll be driving a tank."

But Sussman doesn't have a driver's license. He's an artist from NYC and has never, ever been behind the wheel of even a Coney Island bumpercar. No matter, he's not to whine about it. This isn't, apparently, a patisserie and he isn't, apparently, to go choosing pink frosting.

Second problem: Sussman is actually too short to reach the tank pedals (or whatever his feet are supposed to reach) if he wants to see out the "window." Again: he is to stop whining. So Sussman spends the next 18 months learning to drive a tank while bouncing up and down on the seat, trying to get a look at where he's going. His unorthodox driving technique causes his crew members to barf, a lot, and lots of expense is gone to so that they might have the drugs they require to stop being carsick while he is driving. He backs into several buildings, he runs over a mule. He goes through a fence. He goes around and around in little tank circles looking for a gate.

So imagine a Sussman in every Israeli tank, a Sussman with a gun, a Sussman turning a map upside down trying to figure out where the heck the Gaza Strip is supposed to be. I don't know if the story is even true, but it kind of helps the evening news go down a bit easier.