2/1/98

The Daily Yack

I didnג€™t eavesdrop. I overheard...

    "Allo?"
    "Is that you?"
    "Yeah. I've got a few minutes. You busy?
    "Just doing my nails. So what's new?"
    "The usual."
    "Mm-hm."
    "The kids?"
    "Driving me up a wall. They never listen, they think they know everything and if I don't buy, buy, buy I'm a rotten mother. I don't know why I bother."
    "Mm-hm."
    "Hold on a sec. Dear, would you get the door? I'm on the phone. You still there? Probably that door-to-door Arab lady selling figs."
    "I never buy from them. Who knows if one day she's going to decide to poison the Jews. And why should I support her if her son's maybe a terrorist?"
    "Mm-hm."
    "They're jealous of us, you know. They -- oh, for chrissakes; no, you can't watch TV now, you're going to school in a few minutes. Did you clean up from breakfast yet? I don't want you leaving me a mess; is anybody listening to me? Turn off that TV now! If you have nothing to do take the dog for a walk and while you're out drop by the makolet and pick up some bread and tuna or there'll be nothing for lunch. And don't slam the -- alright, who slammed the door? Bloody kids. Are you still there?"
    "Mm-hm."
    "Bloody kids."
    "I don't know why we put up with this. Did you hear a weather report?"
    "Hot."
    "Again?"
    "They said it might get better by the weekend. For all I care it could snow, we're going to the in-laws for Shabbat. I'd rather have an operation than go there again. That stupid mother of his thinks I'm ruining the children because I'm not religious enough. I'm not a Jew if I don't put up a picture of her favorite rabbi in every room; I'm no good because I don't protect them from the evil eye. You ever hear such a thing? But God forbid he should stand up for me."
    "Mm-hm. You going to Turkey for the holidays?"
    "I suppose. You?"
    "The way they treated me last time I'd be crazy. They're not much better than the Egyptians, you know, they hate us too. After all we've done for them."
    "The more peace we get the more antisemites we're exposed to. That's what my husband says. He says do we have to give back the Golan just so we can go shopping in Damascus?"
    "I hear the prices are good in Damascus."
    "Mm-hm."
    "How the hell can I hear you? I'm on the phone. Sorry. Wait a minute, the idiot's taking a shower and he forgot a towel. Stop yelling, I said I'm coming. You hear how he talks to me?"
    "When my husband talks like that he goes without sex for a week. I don't threaten him, but I think he understands. The women he works with figured it out, they always know when I'm punishing him, because he gets, you know, aggravated for no reason. Men! You can see right through them. If he's having an affair I really don't know, but I'll kill him, that son of a bitch, all I need is to hear from someone and it's over. They say you can't catch a Jewish husband cheating. Huh. If he is fooling around I know for sure it's Mondays because that's when he puts on clean socks. I'll bet you didn't know I had a lover once. He was the cashier in the hospital cafeteria where my husband had his prostate fixed. Sure I felt guilty, wouldn't you? To tell you the truth, he wasn't really a lover in the strictest sense because he only took me out to dinner and we talked about having sex but -- are you there?"
    " "
    "Allo?"
    " "
    "ALLO!"
    "I'm here, I'm here. I told you I had to go fetch a towel. So where were we? Ah yes, pictures of the rabbi and you said you're not going to Turkey this year, or you said you are. Did I tell you I quit smoking?"
    "Mm-hm."
    "So what else is happening?"
    "I'm baking."
    "Mm-hm."
    "I haven't baked in years. Don't ask me why I'm suddenly baking now."
    "So why are you --"
    "Because my mother-in-law tells my husband I'm lazy if I buy a cake in the store, that's why, and I really don't know what to answer because I think  he takes her side. What do you say to an old woman who raised nine kids with a husband who was a shoemaker's assistant and they always had clean clothes and a hot meal? I have to feel inadequate because I can't cope with two and more money than I know what to do with? It's not fair."
    "When you're a mother-in-law I won't remind you of this conversation."
    "You're not a big help."
    "My father knew how to deal with people like that. He used to say he would read the riot act between the lines to any dyed-in-the-mud stick-in-the-wool who crossed the light at the end of his path until they put two by four together and realize the bark is on the wrong tree."
    "He really said that?"
    "He was a brilliant man."
    "Mm-hm. My father was a communist."
    "You have to give a lot of credit to the Russian people for voting in a man with a splotch on his head. No, I don't know where your toenail clippers are, try the back of the freezer on the left side. Because I needed something to clamp on the frozen peas. Bograshov was his name, wasn't it?"
    "Gorbachev."
    "Right, I always get them mixed up."
    "Bograshov is the one that goes to the beach, near the Sheraton."
    "Right."
    "So did you hear the news?"
    "I'd rather not know. Too depressing. My kids know more about what's going on than I do. If you ask me, I'm all for peace if it means everybody has to live in their own country. The Israelis in Israel, the Palestinians in Palestine, the Russians in Russia. And I think if we put all the settlers on the Golan nobody would care if we gave the Golan back to Syria, that's my solution."
    "No, I mean the news about Tzippi. I thought everyone knew, though I don't think she knows everyone knows because she still has the nerve to show her face. But everyone's talking about it. You mean you haven't heard?"
    "No. Uh -- do you know who you're talking to?"
    "You're not Sima?"
    "No. I'm Tzippi."
    "Oh my God."
    "Then you're not Sima either. I thought you were --"
    "I'm Miri. I can't believe... yes, dear, right away! Gotta go, my husband needs the phone. It's an emergency."
    "Mm-hm."
    (Click)
    "Allo, Sima?..."