Oliver Benjamin
leg, and then prances over to give a chair leg the same affectionate
treatment.
As we approached the store we heard a commotion coming
from inside the small building. People were yelling at each other and
there was the sound of things breaking. We hurried in and looked to
see what was happening, and were surprised to see Yippee and
Manu. Manu was holding back Yippee, who was yelling at a clerk and
stuffing little candies in his mouth from the large bin in the middle of
the market. The clerk was screaming obscenities and trying to grab
the candies from Yippee’s hands before he could stuff them in his
mouth, but Yippee was too fast for him. His cheeks were puffed full
of goopy caramels and sticky taffies, and as he yelled back, the
candies flew in chunks out of his mouth, occasionally bouncing off
the shirt of the enraged clerk. We stood dumbfounded, watching the
spectacle, until Manu saw us and called us over to help. After we
pulled them apart, we watched the red-faced Yippee try to defiantly
masticate the goopy mess while he glared silently at the clerk, who
was yelling at him to get the hell out of the store. As we left, we tried
to get Yippee to tell us what happened, but he still had a mouth full
of candy, so Manu had to fill us in.
When most of us would visit the kibbutz market, it was common
practice to take a small candy from the bin in the middle of the
store—a caramel or a taffy or butterscotch or whatever. Everyone on
the kibbutz seemed to do it, and no one had ever complained. It was
a co-op store, and as long as people only took one per visit, no one
would be any worse for wear. The unwritten rule was that you could
only take one, however. Manu explained that Yippee had been unable
to decide between a piece of chocolate toffee and a peppermint taffy,
so he decided to take one, and then walk out the door and come back
in and take another one. As he was leaving the second time, the clerk
instructed Yippee that he would have to pay for the extra piece. It
amounted to about ten argorot, which was the equivalent of about
four cents. Yippee protested on the grounds of insanity. The Israeli
clerk didn’t understand what he was talking about, but insisted that
he pay for the peppermint. Yippee stood firm, and the whole thing
escalated into a shouting match. Finally, Yippee decided that he had
had enough, and started stuffing handfuls of candy indiscriminately
into his trap, all the while yelling that he couldn’t help it. This was
because, he said, he was a diabetic who had taken too much insulin,
and subsequently required massive amounts of sugar to bring his
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