Resolution of water bill

Today, the city office was finally open, so I went in to try to resolve the issue with our water bill (which, as you may recall, was over 3200 shekels due to a leaky faucet outside!). Of course, I had to wait, but when it was my turn, I presented my case. At first, the lady just said that I needed to pay. But then she said that there were some things that could be done. She and a man who was helping her spent quite a bit of time typing things on the computer and even using a calculator. I only followed a little of their discussion with each other. In the end, though, the bill was reduced to only about 1500 shekels, which I think was mostly due to giving me the lowest unit price on all of the water that was used rather than the higher prices normally charged for usage over certain amounts. I had calculated this ahead of time, so this was about what I expected them to do. Then I asked if I could make payments, and that was easily arranged. I paid 300 shekels cash today, and the rest will be paid over 5 months by deductions from my bank account on the 10th of each month. Although it's still a lot of money, I was satisfied that I had gotten the best deal that I could.

Here's the REALLY important part of this, though: I did ALL of this in Hebrew without even a single word of English!