Jewish parents, goes that old tired stereotype, all dream of their kids becoming white-collar professionals: doctors, lawyers, or accountants.
Not me. I always dreamt of having a kid or a son-in-law who was an air conditioner repairman. Why? Because it’s tougher, at least in the summer, to get an air conditioner repairman in this country than it is to get a doctor, lawyer, or accountant.
Israel, baruch Hashem, has a plethora of accountants, lawyers, and doctors. If you’re in a fix – audited, sued, or sick – you’ll find one. In fact, I’ve read that this country has more lawyers per capita than any other country in the world.
But if it’s the middle of the summer, the land is being blasted by relentless heat blowing in from Saudi Arabia, and your air conditioner goes on the fritz, good luck finding someone to fix it.
I’m speaking here from experience. Our 18-year-old mini central air conditioner has become temperamental, which means sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the compressor will kick in and cold air will flow through the ducts like a cold front rolling down from Moscow, and other times it won’t.
A handyman we know, who fixes our trissim (shutters) every time the cord that rolls them up breaks – about every eight months, which makes me suspect he’s installing defective cords to stay in business – looked at the air conditioner and said it seems fine. However, he added, because it’s an old unit, when it gets really hot outside it might be too hot for the compressor to start working. This is a known problem, he said in all earnestness.
Great, I thought; I live on the cusp of a desert and have an air conditioner that doesn’t work when it gets too hot – it only works when it’s a little hot or rather balmy outside.
Trying to find an air conditioner repairman in Israel
OBVIOUSLY UNSATISFIED with that arrangement, I began searching for someone to repair the unit. Good luck with that.
Looking for an air conditioner repairman in this country in July, August, or September is like looking for a unicorn in a pet store, a Wi-Fi signal in the middle of the forest, or a breeze in a sealed room. Forget it. It’s not going to happen.
The Wife and I hunted and then received recommendations for several air conditioning people and called them expectantly. Most didn’t return our call. A few called back but said they were too busy right now to make a house call.
And this, precisely, is why I always dreamt it would be great to be walking down the street with one of my sons, run into an acquaintance, and be able to say, “Hi, this is Yonkel, he’s an HVAC specialist.” HVAC, of course, stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
It would be so great to be able to make this call on a late Friday afternoon in the middle of August: “Son, it’s almost Shabbat. We are going to have a full house for dinner, and the air conditioner is not working. Can you come over now and fix it?”
“Sure, Abba,” he’d say, at least in my dreams. “I’ll be right over.”
None of this, God forbid, is meant to imply that I’m not just proud as punch of the professions all my children have chosen: one is in hi-tech, another in special education, a third is a farmer, and the fourth is still studying, hoping one day to end up as governor of the Bank of Israel.
Those are all very worthy professions, though it stings a bit that not one of them thought even for a nanosecond about going into journalism.
But on a practical level, the benefits each of these professions offer their parents are rather limited – except for the farmer son, who can bring us cartons of cherries in the summer and Granny Smith apples in the winter.
I’m aware this may all sound rather selfish. I know some folks may be horrified at such a sentiment. I know that parents should want their children to enter a profession that will leave them feeling fulfilled. I also know that they should want their children to follow their souls and passions into the profession of their choice.
But would it be so terrible if their souls directed them to air conditioners? Would it be a tragedy if their passion was for freon?
And, by the way, it’s not that bad to want to get practical benefits out of your children. In the old days, people used to have additional kids just to get more working hands out in the fields.
I can picture those marital conversations.
Jeb says to Martha, “The farm’s growing, and we’re going to be short-handed picking corn in a couple of years, dear. What should we do?”
Martha back to Jeb: “Let’s have another kid.”
ALTHOUGH THIS sounds frightfully utilitarian, who hasn’t taken advantage of the kids when they were living at home to do unpleasant chores – wash the floor, scrub the dishes, or empty out the dovecote?
Those, too, are practical benefits gained from children. So the idea is not that far-fetched nor morally bankrupt. Why should the practical benefits derived from kids end when they move out?
And here’s another question: Must the dream of having an air conditioner repairman in the family end just because my kids have chosen other career paths?
Obviously not. There are always the grandkids.
My daughter-in-law might have thought it odd when she asked her boys what they did this summer at Saba and Savta’s house, and they replied: “We replaced an air filter and gently cleaned the evaporator and condenser coils on the air conditioner with a soft brush.” But the seeds need to be planted somehow, and they need to be planted early.
Passion doesn’t just erupt; it needs to be cultivated.