"Squeeze the World"

Here's a tale from the playground. A few days ago, I noticed some girls were playing House and didn't think much of it until today when they wanted me to be the "Ima," mother. Naturally, I wanted nothing to do with that and instead claimed the position of "Savta," grandmother. The idea entertained them sufficiently and I was let off the hook. This was a very intelligent move I soon realized, as Ima immediately started chasing after her daughters. Little did we know that while our dysfunctional family spread out across the yard, another family was forming at our original location. So after the daughters settled down and returned home, a fight soon broke out.

Here's a general idea of the cast: My family consists of four young girls, one of whom speaks English (and Hebrew and Arabic! I'm always very impressed). The rival family only has one Hebrew speaker, while the rest are new students. Off to the side are two English/Hebrew speakers who wisely avoid involvement.

As I approach the tree of contention (grandmothers are not expected to run), the head of the rival family immediately appeals to me, assuring me that her household held first claim. I would usually acquiesce in these circumstances, but this time I had a family to fight for! So, with my grand-daughter's future in mind, I hesitantly responded that we had set up house while they were still forming their family several meters away. She would have none of this, and all my attempts at gently pointing out the truth (Our leaves were still lying there! It was obviously our turf!) were to no avail. The rest of my family was in utter confusion since the only English/Hebrew speaker was off picking more leaves. During the confusion, I induced one of the bystanders to join me, but by that time the other family set the boundaries "since you guys won't." Apparently they built an invisible fence between a tree and stump, and we'd stay on our respective sides unless they wanted to use the swing. The rights to the swing were later on disputed.

After a new argument over swing rights, which was mostly carried out on their side since my family was still busy gathering leaves, the security fence was torn down. One girl stated "why can't we just be neighbors who share things?" The tearing down of the security fence wasn't relayed to the rest of my family, so mass confusion ensued. Thankfully, the recess bell rang and all deeds and rights were left to be sorted next time.

It's too bad grown-ups don't have recess bells.

That sounds way to much like the Godfather.