There are certain skills a person expects to acquire in adulthood.

How to file taxes. How to negotiate a salary. How to cook something besides pasta. How to keep a plant alive for more than three weeks.

There are other skills you hope never to need.

How to identify the sound of an incoming missile. How long it takes to reach a shelter from your bedroom. Which wall in your apartment is safest. How to continue a conversation while wondering whether the siren will go off.

Yet over the past weeks, Israelis have once again demonstrated an extraordinary ability to master things no society should ever have to learn.

Within hours of the first alerts, people were exchanging practical advice with the efficiency of seasoned professionals. Which stairwells offer the best protection. Which apps deliver notifications fastest. Whether it is worth sleeping in clothes. How to carry a sleeping toddler and a phone charger simultaneously at three in the morning.

By now, most of us know the routine.

We know which neighbor will already be in the shelter when we arrive. We know who forgets their keys. We know which children cry and which ones somehow sleep........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)