A Letter to the Wo/man Who Woke Up the Entire Neighborhood This Morning

Dear Sir or Madame,

Let me set the scene for you: It is 8:00 on a Thursday morning, and after a hard week of classes, work, and obligations, my husband and I are still sleeping.  You see, since moving to Israel, we have discovered that Thursday is the only “weekend” we get, since Friday morning is spent preparing for Shabbat, Saturday is Shabbat, and Sunday is the first day of the work week.  Our street is a quiet, shady side-street in a lovely, family-oriented, religious neighborhood.  

Suddenly, we are startled awake by the obnoxious sound of your car horn—a constant blaring shattering the still morning silence.  We wait, hoping it will stop.  Maybe you are driving carpool and want to alert your passenger that you have arrived.  Nope.  It continues well past the socially appropriate amount of time to continue.  There’s no use in trying to fall back asleep—I can barely hear myself think because of how loud your incessant honking is.

A quick trip to the mirpeset reveals that a car has been inconsiderately parked in the middle of our one-way street—a car which you are now stuck behind and cannot drive around.  I see that I am not the only person who has been interrupted in their morning activities and who is intrigued as to why it is necessary to alert the entire neighborhood to your woes.  I wish to remind you that people are often sleeping at 8:00 in the morning—but alas, I can neither speak loudly enough nor clearly enough (in Hebrew) to make my grievance known (unlike yourself). 

The man who belongs to the abandoned car returns, and stops by your window to… explain, protest, offer a peace offering of coffee?  He tries to tell you where he was, and to inform you of the commotion you have caused.  He keeps repeating the same phrase in Hebrew, warning you of your disruption of the peace.  You, however, will have nothing of it, and continue to honk your horn until the man gets into his car and drives away.  In fact, you wait until the car in front of you begins to move before stopping—you weren’t happy enough that the man had returned, you weren’t happy enough that the man got into his car, and you certainly weren’t willing to engage in dialogue with the man. 

As both cars drive away (yours a little too close to the car in front of you, if you ask me), the neighborhood returns to its peaceful state—men and women return to their work, children return to their play—but, alas, I cannot return to sleep for you have kept me awake for too long.

This poses an interesting thought experiment—who is really at fault in this situation?  You, the trigger-happy-horn-honker, or the man who parked his car in the middle of the street (presumably to run an errand quickly and then return)?  Or, is it both of you?  Or neither of you?

I try to be understanding, and give people the benefit of the doubt, but it’s your fault for disturbing the entire neighborhood.  Sure, it was inconsiderate of the man in front of you to abandon his car in the middle of the street, but I was still able to sleep while he was doing so.  You were the one who decided to wake up the neighborhood, to inconvenience the street instead of just one person, to act in a rude, selfish, and inconsiderate way. 

Our street is small, and does not get much traffic—perhaps you were rushing somewhere and thought of our street as a nifty shortcut.  Perhaps you live on our street and were trying to drive to work or whatever it is you do at 8:00 in the morning.  I’m sure your intentions when you woke up this morning were completely innocent—I doubt you planned to take on the responsibility of being a wake-up call for an entire neighborhood.  But you became the villain in this story when you decided to make an entire community suffer for the actions of one man.

Maybe your unwarranted wakeup call should actually serve as a wakeup call for yourself, as well as for the greater global community.  Individuals are unique and act according to their own desires and needs.  Oftentimes, these needs are selfish—rarely do they infringe upon others’ rights or needs.  But when they do, it is unfair to make that one individual serve as a spokesperson for that individual’s entire community.  One altercation with a person does not necessarily accurately predict how a future interaction with a different member of that person’s community will play out.  So next time you find yourself personally affronted by one person’s actions, please—do not make the rest of the community suffer because of it. 

Thanks—

Michelle