"Three more minutes!" Ronit yells from the door.
I pull the curtain aside and stick my head out. "Ronit, I think there's something wrong with my shower. There's no hot water."
"There's no hot water in mine either," Jessica cries out from her stall. "Brrr!"
"None of us have hot water," one of the girls from New York says as she gathers up her stuff and exits the shower. Seriously, she took an entire shower in less than four minutes ... how clean can she be?
Ronit chuckles and says with a big smile, "Welcome to the IDF! You have two minutes left!"
With that warning, I quickly dip into the cold water. Wet and freezing, I quickly lather my hair with shampoo and squirt liquid soap on my poofy sponge. My teeth chatter as I soap myself and quickly plunge under the sprinkling showerhead.
As I'm rinsing, Ronit yells out, "One minute!"
I have to admit, my bottles of shampoo and liquid soap are scattered at my feet. I'm not thinking about bacteria anymore. I'm thinking about my hair conditioner, and how crappy my hair is going to look if I don't put it on. On top of that, I think I just bit my tongue because of my chattering teeth.
Halfway through squirting conditioner on my hair, I hear Ronit give us a "thirty seconds!" warning.
Oh, crap.
I don't even have my conditioner spread, and already I have to rinse it off. Does Ronit know how much Aveda minty-smelling conditioner costs? Not that she would care, but still.
"Amy, come on," Jessica whispers to me. "You have, like, ten seconds. Are you done?"
I pull my dirty clothes off the hook to get to my PJs from behind them. Unfortunately, my PJs fall onto the wet ground because the hook is too small. Taking a deep breath and pulling on my yellow polka-dot pajama bottoms (now wet in spots) and matching yellow top, I grab everything and run out.
"Tomorrow you'll have to do ten pushups for each minute you're late," Ronit informs me.
While we walk back to our barracks, Jessica blows hot air on her hands. "I'm freezing."
My teeth are still chattering as I look down at my thin nightshirt. "I think I'm going to be permanently nippy." I can't help but notice, again, that I have the biggest boobs out of our entire unit by far. I got my blue eyes from my Israeli grandmother, my black curly hair from my father, and my huge saggy boobs from my mom. Okay, so they're not as saggy as my mom's are... she's pregnant.
Did I mention that soon I'm not going to be an only child anymore? Yep, my mom and stepdad Marc "with a c" decided to have a baby. So now I'm going to have a brother or sister young enough to be my kid.
Back in the barracks, I open my suitcase and slip a University of Illinois sweatshirt over my wet, shivering head. Then I open my makeup case and do my nightly routine: take residue makeup off, put toner and moisturizer on, then spritz refresher spray for that extra misty-sparkle to make my skin look radiant (I know I sound like a commercial, but I did model once and my mom is in the advertising business).
After flat-ironing my hair, I pull out my favorite pillow from home. It's completely encased in a hot pink silk pillowcase. I set it on my bed. One of the New York girls, Victoria (aka Vic), is on my top bunk. Vic climbs up and the springs squeak as her weight presses down on the thin mattress.
I look up at the exposed springs. I hadn't noticed them before, but now I see why Jessica (who shall now be deemed the "manipulative traitor") wanted to switch bunks with me. The small springs keeping the mattress (and Vic) from falling on my face are attached with an S-type looking metal thingy. The problem is that almost every other spring is broken, missing, or super worn-out.
I'm not the claustrophobic type normally, but watching the mattress sink lower every time Vic moves makes me nervous.
I mean, seriously, what if Vic overstresses the one spring that's keeping all the rest from snapping off. It's like the game Jenga or that ice-breaking game. One wrong move and it's all over--SPLAT!
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jess waving to get my attention. I narrow my eyes at my best friend. She puts her hand to her heart and mouths the word sorry, although she looks more amused than sorry. I think sometimes her brother Ben, aka the demon from hell (even though I'm Jewish and don't believe there's a hell), has rubbed off on her. One of his regular stunts is tossing chunks of challah bread across the Shabbat table with the purpose of getting one stuck in my cle**age. When he's successful, he grins and offers to take it out.
"Lights out in four minutes!" Ronit calls.
I wave to Miranda, who's on the bottom bunk two away from mine, across the aisle. I pull up my painfully thin blanket and try to get comfortable. It's not easy to relax with stretched-out springs squeaking overhead every time my bunkmate moves. I should watch all the food that goes into Vic's mouth during the next ten days. I can't risk her gaining weight while we're here, that's for sure... my life may depend on it.
Seriously, if the springs do give out in the middle of the night and she falls on me, will I suffocate and die? And if I do, will anyone care? Maybe I should sleep on my side, so if the springs collapse and the mattress and Vic fall on me, I might still have a little air pocket and live.
I'm definitely feeling sorry for myself tonight, but then I think of the Israeli soldiers who have to sleep on a bottom bunk staring up at missing and broken springs every night for years. I'm only here for a little over a week.
When Ronit flips off the lights, I turn on my side (partially because I like sleeping on my side) and think about Avi lying in his bunk.