March 1, 2004
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I'm Saying Eli Sent Me
When I began my afternoon sneezing fit the other day, my colleague "Eli" sauntered over to have a word. I looked up (it's only possible to look up at Eli when sitting down), a wry grin already on my face. Eli affects me that way about half the time. When I have time for him, he's fascinating and hilarious. When I don't, he's irritating and incomprehensible. Eli himself, however, never changes.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Eli grew up on a kibbutz near the Red Sea, herding sheep and repairing a endless line of hard-worked farm equipment. Eli's immigration to the U.S. with his wife and three children some decades ago added to our melting pot an acerbic bit of spice of the sort that feeds this nation's greatness.
As an employee, Eli does have his down sides, not the least of which is his disdainful and untrusting attitude toward all our clients (akin to how one might treat someone with suspected connections to urban terrorism). This may be an offshoot of Eli's birth in the cauldron of the Middle East, or perhaps the fact that our clients have, indeed, on more than one occasion gone back to their home laboratory and issued a patent application suspiciously similar to Eli's prior art.
Eli receives a U.S. patent approximately twice a year. His brand of engineering is intuitive, and thus sometimes bears the brunt of ill will by younger, better-trained engineers who claim he can't analyze himself out of a paper bag. But they change their tune soon enough when up against a problem in one of Eli's particular specialities. Eli has a gift, born not of study and the scientific method, but of something far more visceral. His fellow engineers, while accepting his input eagerly, don't hesitate to mock it by mentioning that it might have something to do with putting the goat in the house. This is a reference to Eli's tendency to punctuate his expostulations on all things professional and personal with morality tales that lose something in the cultural translation.
Personally, when time permits I love listening to Eli's stories. Sometimes I can extract the point, on the basis of a degree in literature and some familiarity with Aesop and others of that ilk, but more often than not I'm just left shaking my head in delighted recognition that there are still cultural differences so vast, in this global village of ours, that the true sense of meaning just does not translate.
So I started sneezing, and Eli came over. I can't pretend to capture his words. You'll have to imagine something between Zero Mostel and Yassar Arafat (whom I'm sure Eli, with his The-World's-One-Immense-Ironic-Bad-Joke Attitude, would laugh to hear I believe he resembles). In his characteristic hand-waving, aphoristic, article-free style, Eli informed me sternly that it was time to get off my high horse and go to the allergist. I said somewhat shamefacedly that I had, and that I was allergic to the usual things (cockroach dung, dust, various trees, life in general), but I just didn't want to do drugs. Eli waved his arms some more. Making some unintelligible remark about drugs and youthful high jinks and how he understood my attitude completely, but I was an absolute idiot to hold it, he commanded me to go get a prescription.
My current state of wheeziness is the worst I've had in my several decades of suffering, and I've always resisted so far. But something about Eli is irresistable. Perhaps it's that powerful mystique born from millenia of survival under conditions too harsh to be imagined, and all the vast sardonic power of the humor derived therefrom.
Anyway, I'm on my way to become one of the drugged. I'll tell the allergist Eli sent me.
I may also reference the goat in the house, just for laughs.
Comments (13)
~nods~
Yes. It's time to end the suffering. We all need an "Eli" in our lives from time to time.
sometimes you need a pal to tell you.. what you dont want to see... or hear or do..
I envy your ability to gel a jumble of thoughts and reactions about an event or a personality and set the end result to word.
Eli is an enigma. One who mixes moodiness which is not in his control with mischievous toying over which he has complete control and purpose. This combined with his self image as one who posesses an infallible and superior perception of people and the workings of the world cause him to be inflammatory and damn hard to take sometimes. But, praise the sand dunes we have him.
I too have an aversion to taking perscription drugs. I have a continuing tug of war with my oncologist over taking a drug to suppress a possible cancer side effect. I take it reluctantly for awhile then, in a fit a defiance, I stop. I've been told that my cholesterol is not terrible but a drug would help...no thanks. I fight allergies/colds most of the year (just in the last few years) and know that Eli's miracle cure would help but...haven't taken that step yet.
So, I appreciate your reluctance. My advice (I hate when I'm forced to say this from time to time), do what Eli says.
drugs can be fun
. seriously: i hope you are feeling better.
I think I like that Eli. It's hard not to like him from your description of this man. I hope the meds make you feel better.
I live in a sea of Elis, because I live in a neighbourhood that is mostly populated by people who have recent immigrated here. I love it and can't imagine living anywhere else, frankly.
Variety is the spice of life, vive la différence, yada yada yada.
That was a charming narrative.
Get well, dear.
stop MGM
LOL - Eli sounds very much like the Israelies I've met.
A wonderful description and painted word pictures!
One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
- A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all duly constipated authorities.
- One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
- To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into the nose until it drips into the throat.
- The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar
These sayings are from kids and have nothing to do with your Blog- However, my mind being the cavernous convoluted thing it is took the idioms of speech concept from those of another land and boiled it down to the funny things kids say. Go figure.
where else would you milk that goat?
These... "tales that lose something in the cultural translation." and "shaking my head in delighted recognition that there are still cultural differences so vast, in this global village of ours, that the true sense of meaning just does not translate." were the lines on which my antenna jolted upright. I have an earnest desire to grasp and share in cultural differences and I feel most American people, as a generalization (sorry), really couldn't care less about how it is (or was) in other places/cultures. I am painfully aware that I know very little, I was taught very little really, growing up in the public schools here, about most other countries and even, about many on our own soil, who are not the same as we are here in the midwest.
I'm by no means a worldly wise one, but I do want, passionately, to learn other languages and cultural ways, so that when I hear an 'Eli tale' from someone not born or raised here, I can appreciate it a bit more. I learned a lot in Colombia, being older than when I was in Germany and visited France, about the differences and the similarities of our peoples. For the Colombian friends I made, this seemed to be an important bit of information that they shared with thier kin, as they introduced me around. "This is Deb, she loves Colombia and it's people. She asks us all the time, questions about why we have this or where that is from." They smiled broadly all the while.
Tell Eli I say 'Hello, and put the goat in the house!"
Deb
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