Purim, 2002

Purim is a Jewish holiday that you’re supposed to get dressed up for. Another custom is bringing food baskets to friends. Just because I had to be at work – didn’t mean I wasn’t going to enjoy it. So of course the rational thing to do is put a plush red teletubby head on as a silly hat and bring food baskets to work along with fuzzy antennas and assorted other props so co-workers could get into the spirit. The rest of my outfit was not as festive. Regular comfort-gear olive green cargo pants, and a black t-shirt. This being Tel Aviv in 2002 – someone thought I looked suspicious.

All of a sudden I was grabbed from behind by a police officer. At first I couldn’t see who had grabbed me and my heart raced about a mile a minute. He asked if he could search my bags and that someone had reported a suspicious looking person in military pants and a strange hat. I asked – what do you mean? Have they never heard of Purim? He said – well, you know with the situation people aren’t celebrating as much this year. He apologized and was really nice about the whole thing.

I’m female and pale, a bit tall, but not usually the first person suspected of things. Made me kinda thankful for that.

So now you know the truth. They’re not gay – they’re a terrorist cell.

I imagine this is what a terrortubby would look like. Maybe a black flag as the antenna these characters seem to require.

Republished from original post on terrortubby dot 0catch dot com [do not recommend going to the link -  lots of popups!]

My first attempt at a website looked like this…

This also happened a few days after I met my husband Kev. I had joined Radio Paradise a few days before this happened. So I tend to think of Purim as the anniversary of when we met. A photo of us from 2005 with me wearing the teletubby head when we met up with some RPeeps in NJ.