The evening began with a bumpy camel ride, foreshadowing future testicular pain that was to come…For those unfamiliar with the history of the Bedouins, they are the nomadic tent dwellers who most commonly reside in the Middle East…some ruthless individuals may go as far as calling them the dirty hippies of the holy land…but with camels…Personally, I chose to describe their lifestyle as, “Burning Man, without the art, free love and the fire”…but they are very hospitable people.
For dinner the Bedouins served us a traditional meal…Despite its uncanny resemblance to Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat, it was a lovely meal and a terrific destruction of ethnocentricity…Although we had gained a new appreciation for the Bedouin culture and cuisine, we did find it interesting that only a few feet beyond our tents rested several mobile homes, equipped with air conditioning units, televisions and satellite dishes…. But then again everyone knows how much those crazy Bedouins love their “Greys Anatomy.”
After the meal, several members of our group along with members from the other two groups with whom we were sharing a tent (approximately one hundred people) went to sleep in order to physically prepare for the 5:00 AM hike up Mount Masada…Unbeknown to us, prior to our “Birthright Expedition,” Masada is the location where a sect of Jews committed group suicide as the Romans stormed up to their plateau civilization…They felt that group suicide was a jingoistic action as defeat appeared to be forthcoming…Despite the fact that we had an early morning wake-up call; my associates and I were not amongst those headed toward the pillow…There were too many bottles of wine to be drunk, bongos to be slapped and ladies to love…
At approximately 1:30 AM, after quenching our desert inflicted thirst with some fine Mediterranean vino, I headed to the sandy hills with a special lady…Ironically I had traveled half way around the world only to meet a special lady who lived a few blocks from my house in New York…Well, I laid down a blanket like the gent that I am and we began to enjoy ourselves beneath the stars of the Middle Eastern Sky…Much to my surprise and delight, she stuck her hand in my drawers…There I was…in the birthplace of western religion catching a handy…I only imagined Jacob doing the same as he wore his Technicolor dreamcoat with great satisfaction…
Handy’s are not something most men aspire to receive but, under the right circumstances, it can be a nostalgic and pleasurable action…Prior to the evening in the Bedouin tents, I felt a rebirth of the feeling of when I was a child at summer camp…that alone brought me great happiness…a happiness that must be experienced in order to understand…Camp and handy’s…they went together like Satal and Masochism…like Ben and Jerry…
Then, just as I was basking in my glory days, she stopped midway….just…stopped…I turned to the lady to see if everything was all right…carpal tunnel is a serious condition and I would never want to see someone put their future at risk just to give me a handy…I’m not that selfish….But before I could say anything she asked me, with all seriousness, “What’s your favorite color?….Shocked at the insane timing of such a banal question I told her my favorite color was black, laid back down and extreme awkwardness ensued…After noticing that my Bedouin tent was still pitched she carried on with the process….no joke, approximately 30 seconds later she stopped again!!!! And once again she turned to me and asked, “What’s your favorite restaurant on Long Island?”…WHATTT??? My favorite restaurant is Mim’s!!!!…She agreed that it was a quality establishment…and the process resumed, yet again….
This happened about ten times until I had had enough…You can only put a man through so much pain…I picked up the blanket and told her that it was lovely spending time with her but we needed to get some sleep…After all, in less than two hours we would be marching up Mount Masada to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea…I returned to the tent unfulfilled but my soul felt fine….
Upon returning to the tent I saw my associate Zack writing on sleeping bodies with his newly acquired sharpie marker…Brief side note: Zack’s brilliant idea was that if he wrote on himself as well, no one would accuse him of such actions…funny idea but not overly successful…However, I do respect his enthusiasm…I quickly fell asleep but was awakened briefly by Zack’s marker on my face…I was primarily upset by his actions but his sincere response negated all of my unpleasant emotions…His rationale was that he “didn’t want people to falsely accuse me of such heinous actions” so he felt the need to draw a moustache on my face…I giggled and went back to sleep…
4:30 AM WAKE UP CALL…Oh stuff…I knew something was wrong right away…BLUE BALLS…a case so severe that I struggled to walk to the public outhouse only thirty feet away…HOW WAS I GOING TO HIKE UP A MOUNTAIN?…Waddling like a dweble, I made it to the bathroom only to see a line of 40 males….It was imperative that I ejaculate immediately but there were no stalls available…What was I going to do if I had to hike in such an astonishing amount of pain? I was born to be a father and this could risk it all!!!…As I contemplated my paternal future I heard our group leaders voice in the distance…“ONE MINUTE, ONE MINUTE UNTIL THE BUSES LEAVE. WE MUST MAKE SURE WE SEE THE SUN RISE”…I was doomed…
I grabbed my backpack, vomited outside the tent and dragged myself to the back of the bus, ashamed and unsure of what I was going to do…Unlike most American buses, the Israeli buses did not have a bathroom, which eliminated the idea of a casual bathroom crank session…Keeping with our established trip tradition, I sat in the back row beside two female friends…one of whom I had know from my days of summer camp and the other a friend of hers from college…Although we had only known each other briefly, we immediately shared a familial bond…
The girls knew something was wrong with me…They sensed my pain…I told them what had happened the night before and they wanted to help “ease my pain,” like Ray Consella helping James Earl Jones’s character in the film “Field of Dreams.”…However, they wanted nothing to do with any physical assistance…something we did not discuss but upon which we telepathically agreed…These two were family….
Mystified, I stared out the window into the pitch black desert as our bus steamrolled down the road like the Romans charging toward Masada…Because we were heading to view the sunrise, it was not only dark outside, but the interior of the bus was dark as well…Everyone had gone sleep for the 30 minute ride…fudge it…the deed had to be done….
I asked one of the ladies to hold up a towel to shield me in case someone did awaken…and as a means to pretend like I had an ounce of class…Then I sent the troops in. Operation Blue Balls had commenced…Luckily, the other lady who I was sitting beside generously offered a breast as a visual aid and I engaged in battle…I fought and fought but the deed was not getting done…intense angst ran through my blood as I could smell Masada approaching…
Suddenly, the heavens opened just as the group leader took the microphone to awaken my fellow tour members…After intense fighting the troops were successful…I was able to send them home in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family…Mission accomplished…
As for the hike? Well the hike was a glorious one and the sunrise was the finest my eyes had ever seen…Happiness in the holy land…if you build it….
