It was almost midnight in Tel-Aviv. It was a dreary hot night and I was alone in my apartment preparing myself for bed alone (again naturally) then my mobile phone starts playing George Harrison:" You'll never know how much I really love you, you'll never know how much I really care, which is the ringtone of one of my daughters…."   I jumped out of the bed and tried to find the damned Nokia e-71.

Strange they never call me at such an hour, actually they never call me unless they need something or they are in a serious trouble such as lack of money for a cocktail or two. I gues that other fathers get calls at least once a day from their teenage daughters who want to know how daddy feels or asking eagerly if they can come and help him with the housekeeping. I didn't have time to ponder about my parenthood.

Hysterically I searched for my reading glasses while George  sang"Do you want to know a secret?" and finally I could see the image of my eldest girl with her army uniform. She is no longer a teenager and she is a fighter serving in a special unit in the IDF. I remember exactly when I took the picture. It was after she finished her special training. In the image she smiles, her blue eyes are shining as she holds her M-16 rifles steadily not bothered at all from the grenades attached to her belt. She knows how to drive a tank and can disbarment an armed al-kayda terrorist in two seconds with her bare hands.

"Daddy!!" She is screaming over the phone, "Where are you Daddy?”

"Here I am my sweetie. What happened? Are you in trouble? Where are you? I'm coming right away!" I tried to be calm as possible; my heart was beating like Sergeant Peppers drum. I knew that I have to stay calm.

"I'm here at the bottom of the stairway!  You must come and save me. I nearly died!" her voice sounded desperate I hesitated no more and jumped from the bed wearing my pajamas. ; I didn’t have time to put my trousers on. I ran down the stairs, two or three at a time and there she was standing in the front entrance door shivering and trembling.  The M-16 was still on her shoulders and the hand grenades shook like bell's clappers.  It took me a second to see that all her parts are well connected to her body and that she doesn't have any bruises or scratches. She wasn't attacked by anyone I thought and then, my heart went "boom" when I thought that she might have an internal injury or something.

"What is it darling?" My voice was broken to pieces.

"There is a dead cockroach on the step," She cried. Now that daddy is around she let her tears fall like a rain and if I hadn’t of stopped her we will end with a pool of tears larger then Alice's under the ground.

In the far right corner of the corridor laid a body of a cockroach with his feet up. I removed the dead vermin which I killed two days ago but I couldn't let her know that. I don't need provide her shrink with an additional excuse for another year of sessions covering all those nasty things and damage daddy has caused her. It’s always the parents fault you see.

"I love you daddy," she finally said when we entered her room .

Maybe this situation will bring us closer as father and daughter, and then she opened her Facebook account and then slammed the door hard in my face. Apparently not!

Notes to the reader :

(1)    This is a fiction story. It is not true that I killed the cockroach. I was too afraid when I first saw it and I called Exterminator Company to do the job.

(2)    Don't you ever dare show this story to my daughter unless you are her shrink and you need another yacht?