Guest post courtesy of Amy Rothschild:
In Yiddish, there are similar terms: shlemiel and shlimazel. A shlemiel is clumsy or inept and a shlimazel is someone who is plagued with constant bad luck. In other words, a schlemiel is somebody who often spills his soup and a schlimazel is the person it lands on. In this particular case, I think I might have actually qualified as both. While visiting Israel for the first time ever, I was excited to explore a land that I had been learning about for my entire life. I might have been a little too excited, because I wound up crashing into street stanchions everywhere I went. It became a running joke in my family and to this day, they feel the need to alert me every time a stanchion is in my path.
Pro-tip: Always be aware of your surroundings, especially if you’re in unfamiliar territory or if you’re traveling with people who will ridicule you for the rest of your life.