I'm not sure how I got there, but last night I found myself riding a trail around the internet reading about some sort of controversy regarding "Israeli art students." The item caught my eye because I had my own experience with an Israeli art student which I'll get to below.

I noticed the first link because a banner at antiwar.com (which I had reached through a link at Pravda.ru - don't ask) caught my eye and led me to this page. It's a page with whole bunch of links to items regarding a supposed Israeli spy-ring broken up pre-9/11. For some obscure reason, or so the theory goes, a group of young Israeli agents were staking out the DEA in Florida. They were posing as art students hawking their paintings door-to-door, but seemed to be taking an unnatural interest in the office of the DEA and the comings and goings of the agents there.

Now, antiwar.com looks like a loony web-site run by anti-semite whacko Justin Raimondo, but a web-search shows the story did get quite a bit of play elsewhere as well, with various theories as to the level of sinister intent behind these "agents."

Salon.com did a story (requires payment to read the whole thing), with Letters to the Editor here. Ha'Aretz has a good run-down here. Shark Blog wrote about it here and Glenn Reynolds had a similar experience to mine. You see he, like me, actually met these spies.

Yes, I too met with Israeli agents.

Well, not "agents" so much as well, annoying door-to-door salesmen. You see, while the general conspiracy-theory part of this states most of the activity took place around the Florida area and my office is just outside of Boston, they decided to pay me a visit oh, it must have been a couple of years ago now.

You see, there's something else significant about my location. I'm quite literally on Main Street, and despite the fact that I have a "NO SOLICITORS" sign on my office door, still, STILL, I get door-to-door salespeople stopping in on a regular basis to sell me all manner of things. In fact, they seem proud to have blown off my sign. It must be something they train them in, "Your first step in being a truly annoying wretch is to ignore any "No Soliciting" signs. You must get your foot in the door! This is your first step toward a more assertive future!" In fact, they probably look for those signs, since it shows the people inside are probably not that good at saying "NO" in person - and they'd be right.

So I get a fairly steady stream of bag-carrying young people coming through my office selling various nick-nacks ("take a look at this calculator/alarm/calendar! - only 3 bucks!"), wall posters, phone and internet services, wood polishers/engine de-greasers (I kid you not), restaurant discount coupons and cut-rate cruises. Some of these doinks even go poking around the rest of my office after I say no to them to see if there's anyone else, or come into my meeting room while I'm meeting with clients!

I remember the incident with the Israeli even after a couple of years have passed for a couple of reasons: One, because it's not every day a young Israeli girl comes around...Two, because of the unusual item she was selling - original art...Three, because of the length of time she stayed, and Four, because of the unusually high cost of what she was selling - around a hundred bucks - what could be considered a high-ticket item for the door-to-door crowd.

She had come in lugging this big black portfolio with a sort of hook/handle to be able to carry the thing under her arm and started in like all the other solicitors I get - lying. As I recall, and I don't recall it in any detail, but this is all the jist of it, she said that she was going around to publicise some young Israeli artists. She absolutely assured me that she wasn't selling anything, that she just wanted a few minutes to show me the art.

Being the simple dupe that I am, I agreed of course.

So, she sat down on the floor with the portfolio, flipping through the pieces and showing me each in turn while I sat there with a bemused smile waiting for the punch-line (there's always a punch-line) and entertaining myself by trying to decide whether she was cute or not, and if so, how cute, and wishing I'd paid more attention in Hebrew school.

She told me that there were a bunch of people just like her going around, and that it was all building to a showing some weeks in the future. Oh really? Where was it going to be, I inquired? Slight pause...oh, in New York. Did I notice a slight moment of discomfort? Of course, I doubted there was going to be any such show.

Anyway, she went on and on showing me each piece, and then going through the whole pile again and asking me to tell her which ones I liked best. Aha! Now we're getting to the end I sensed. Well, I was confident I wasn't buying anything, and she just kept on and on.

Finally, yes, the pitch. She offered the pictures for sale. I think for around $100, maybe even offering a 2 for 1 deal or something - I don't remember exactly.

Now, all of this is de rigeur for these door-to-door types. Telling me they're not selling anything, trying to get me to make a connection to the product by getting me to hold it in my hands or pick which I liked and then spending a lot of time with me so that perhaps I'd end up feeling beholden to them and make a purchase out of some sense of obligation.

If I'd have known then what I know now, maybe I could have confronted her! I could have just come right out and asked, "Who do you work for? You're an Israeli spy aren't you?!" Who knows what might have happened...

At the sound of my sudden accusation she became quickly and unexpectedly alert. Her hand lunged toward a pocket in the portfolio I hadn't noticed before and when it came back into view she was holding a compact tranquilizer gun!

Time slowed as the barrel of the gun turned toward me, and in a flash all of my old karate training and reflexes came flooding back into my mind. I struck out quickly with my right hand, grasping for the wrist holding the pistol. With my left arm I reached forward and out, stepping in and trying to get my arm up under her chin to take her down and slam her over on her back.

But she was ready. As I reached out with my left, her right hand shot forward with an open palm strike to my nose. I was able to turn my head just in time, but even the glancing blow caused my eyes to water and blurred my vision.

Keeping my forward momentum, I managed to topple her over on her back, a satisfying "unf" escaping her lips as she went down and the tranq pistol skittered across the floor.

That's when I made my mistake. I took my eyes off the spy and watched the pistol. She was well trained and in shape, and she didn't miss the lapse in my attention, striking forward with two fingers directly into my windpipe and rolling me off of her.

I recovered quickly enough to get to the pistol just as she did, grabbing her wrist just as she wrapped he fingers around it, and grabbing her off hand with mine we were locked face-to-face in a battle of strength. She was shockingly strong for a small woman and we were cemented in our struggle, panting, sweating and pouring all our might into the combat.

As we struggled our faces came close and our eyes locked, neither of us willing to show the slightest mental opening. And in that insant something changed. She thrust her head forward and kissed me hard on the mouth! The taste of blood mixed with the smell of sweat, perfume and desperation as each of our tongues sought the other's and we lost ourselves in the passion of the moment and pressed our bodies, one against the other...

/cue cheesy music...bow-chicka-bow-bow

Huh? Wuh? Oh, sorry, lost my train of thought there for the moment.

Anyway, when we got down to it, the end that is...finally...I refused to purchase anything, wished her luck and watched her pack up her stuff and head on back down the walkway. Eh...a little wide in the caboose.

So that's my tale of me and the "spy." In the final analysis, I'd agree with one of the sources I read that speculated that the art was just some stuff they got painted in China for 5 or 10 bucks and piece and then went out and tried to sell with an interesting story at a tidy profit. Big whoop.

Wait, OMG, I forgot...we have an IRS office in town! Yes, she must have meant to go there to case the joint, but got the address wrong and wound up with me! Yeah, that's the ticket...