The other day I was sitting around, thinking of ways to make the world a better place and also plotting against my enemies. Don’t worry, nothing dramatic, and certainly not anything we haven’t seen in the Bible and maybe on HBO and other premium cable channels. So I was sitting and plotting but then that got really exhausting, so I decided to make some phone calls for idle chatter.
“Hmm,” I thought to myself, while scrolling through my contacts. “Mama gave me life, why don’t I retaliate and call her first?”
Papa picked up Mama’s phone. Personally, I don’t even understand how that’s legal, but I didn’t want to get the feds involved.
“I’m glad you called,” Papa lied. “Do you have Channukah candles for Wednesday? Because I will make latkes.”
I don’t know what latkes have to do with Channukah candles, but I made a few mental notes to look into a dementia screening program and to buy some antacids and some other stuff I can’t remember.
After an exchange of what people who were not privy to that conversation refer to as “pleasantries”, Papa put Mama on the phone. I never understood that expression, incidentally. Don’t you just hand over the phone to the other person? Why do you have to place them on the phone? Does the warranty cover such placement?
“I can’t talk now,” Mama greeted me. “But my sister has never heard of the term blow job. Bye.”
Now I don’t know about you, and how you react when your mother says “my sister has never heard of the term blow job” but personally, and again, perhaps it’s just me, that’s not something that I like to hear “bye” after. No, what I like to hear after is chapter and verse with a few psalms thrown in for good measure about how this discovery was made, and what, if anything, we are going to do about it.
So the next part is really boring, but since I’m getting paid by the word here, I’ll summarize it in twelve paragraphs. Basically I said to Mama “tell me!” and she said “I’m busy!” and I said “this is important!” and she said “it’s less important and more funny but now is not a good time!” and I said “who knows how much time we have on this earth?! Is there really anything more important than family?” and she said, “you are really annoying” and I said, “thank you.”
But the good news is that I finally wore her down and she told me the story.
“I decided to buy you and children a joke book,” Mama started, “so what when you fly to Costa Rica for vacation, you will not be sad.” Now I have no idea why I would be sad flying to Costa Rica for a vacation, perhaps because in addition to being annoying I am insane, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“I thought you and the children would read joke book and laugh a lot,” Mama continued. “But then I decided to read some jokes and there are a lot about the blow job, so I decide to give book to my sister instead.”
“That is, indeed, a wise choice,” I conceded. Because if Mama thought she was going to gift me a joke book instead of fine jewelry for Channukah this year, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing she rethought that plan.
“But when I explain to my sister why I give her book, she become confused. ‘I know what blow is in English,’ she tell me ‘and I know what job is, but not blow job.”
“I see,” I saw.
“Anyway, that is story. You happy now?”
And you know what? I was happy now. Except that was then.
And now I’m unhappy again.
Maybe I’ll call someone.
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