Hey all, been a hot minute since I updated this blog, huh? Well, I have a fun story for you today, because I’ve barely slept and it’s late enough in the morning that I’m not going to.

Yesterday I had a pretty good day all things considered: I met up with an old friend, ate a pizza, watched another episode of Severance, all the fun of the fair. However, my Exciting Behaviours have led to me only coming back to my dingy lil’ apartment around midnight. I have work in the morning, so I set my alarm clock a little later than usual and dropped facefirst onto my bed.

It is now 5:04 in the morning, and I get woken up by my phone ringing loudly. This is not the alarm I’ve set the morning prior, no no, this is a phone alert that there’s missiles on their way to my general vicinity and I should haul ass to a bomb shelter. I’m Israeli, we have legally mandated bomb shelters in every building since like 40 years ago so this isn’t something that came as a particular shock, so I put on some dirty clothes, sandals, grab a water bottle, and waddle over to the bomb shelter under a nearby hotel. It’s still somewhat dark out, but the sun is starting to come out so there’s a bit of ambient light.

Nothing really exciting happens in the bomb shelter. I see the same people I’ve been seeing there for the past week, all equally tired, we hear a boom or two come from outside, and we wait for about 20~30 minutes for the army to say it’s safe to go outside again. At 5:26, we get told we can go back to sleep. We do an orderly line, walk out, and walk our separate ways back home. It’s a little sunnier outside.

It is 5:28, I am unlocking my apartment door. My phone rings again; there’s more bombs on their way. The entire street proceeds to do a 180 on whatever their current path was, and walk back to their respective bomb shelters. I do the same, a little more incredulously than before. Sitting inside, I’m informed that there’s supposed to be a ceasefire around 7, so atleast this will be the last of the bombings for the coming weeks. We joke how much it would suck to get hit with a direct strike hours before the stupid war ends. Thankfully, so far bomb shelters have had a 100% success rate at protecting people from their building being leveled, so we should be alright.

We get notified that everything’s fine, we can go back to bed. It’s almost 6 at this point so I don’t know how much sleep I can get done before I need to work, but yknow, better than nothing. I get into my apartment, refill my water bottle, put on the AC, and get into bed.

You will never believe what happens next.

It is 6:09, and I waddle back outside in my khakhis and sandals, thinking that Ali Khaminei¹ is fucking with me specifically. The sun is now bright enough that the streetlights have been turned off. My friends are sending various flavors of “YOU’RE FUCKING KIDDING ME” in the group chat as I go back into the bomb shelter, noticing how black my eyebags are. People are sending memes about the vicious cycle that’s this pre-ceasefire dance. I am trying my hardest not to fall asleep on one of the 5 KG popcorn bags this hotel keeps in the bomb shelter.

Another 20 minutes pass. I realize I am not falling asleep today, but we get told we can come back out. The sun is now fully blasting my eyes as I walk back to my apartment. I pass a bus driver who could not care less about what’s going on and is doing his shift as if nothing weird is going on.

My phone rings again.

It is 6:33, and as I waddle back into the bomb shelter I text my boss saying there’s no way I’m getting any work done on 5 hours of sleep and 4 different rocket alarms. The news say a building was struck directly and three people died. The joke I made earlier is now a little less funny.

We’re finally allowed out. It is 7 am, and the ceasefire has started. I waddle back home, turn on the water heater, and remember I have both a doctor’s appointment and online groceries arriving this morning so I can’t go back to bed.

Well.

Atleast I have a really good excuse to be a lazy shit today.