Permitting a large cookie factory

This morning I had a meeting with the Ministry engineer in a large cookie factory in Holon. It is 17 km from my home, but the traffic is so bad that it took me two hours in the car. The factory is in a large brute concrete industrial estate, full of workshops and no place to park - everywhere they were loading or unloading cars. The cookie factory is a Bucharan family business, these are Jews that had been cut off from the world for hundreds of years in a Central Asian oasis and they are extremely religious. The walls were decorated with wildly colored pictures of Oriental Jewish saints and thank-you memorials of their generosity. It employs two hundred diverse workers. The cookies are excellent.

I had submitted my proposal about two years ago, but only three months ago received the retainer and started the project. The Government Officers were very angry - everybody was shouting in Russian - but surprisingly, the actual observations were mild and sensible, and only near the end I discovered why the commotion. The Bucharan Haredi suffers from a socio-genetic defect that prevents him from telling a true word, even when it is a palpable, visible, innocent fact, moreover, even when it would be to his own advantage! This character flaw reveals, I guess, an instinctive terror of authorities.  It appears that they had hired some Russian engineer before me and he had submitted untrue data, embarrassing the Ministry people. Then he decided to accept my old proposal, hiding that he wanted me to solve his badly poisoned situation. As always, I designed an elegant, technically correct and doable design and today we met on the site to see how it will be carried out.

After two hours of walking around with drawings in hand, everything was agreed. Because of ignorance and panic, the Bucharan had tied himself into a slipknot and hanged himself. Having established that I am honest as well competent, the Regulator in chief received a cookie box and exited. I waited for a cheque, hoping also to be honored with a cookie, but nothing, so I approached a cute Asiatic girl who was portioning a chocolate cream cake and invited myself.

Calories that this old obese Jew needs not.