It started in Kindergarten. I’m sitting on the linoleum floor and there’s this beautiful five year old (girl) two rows in front of me. So, I scooch my way up there and accidentally bump into her. She turns about one quarter around and says “get away from me.” I mean she didn’t even give me a full turnaround. What’s up with that?
I was only four at the time, so after a couple of decades of therapy, I dismissed it as a case of her not being interested in younger men.
Plus, she wasn’t even Jewish. In retrospect I learned that if she was Jewish she would have been more gentle. After all, I was a young person, four years old, for those whose eyes have started to glass over, and I might someday be useful for something. Like schlepping, for instance. Which reminds me of a guy I saw coming out of Zabar’s the other day. He’s with his wife and they’re Jewish in their late 60s…don’t worry about it…I know because I know. She’s carrying her purse and he’s carrying a bunch of packages and wearing a tee shirt that says, “I Schlep Therefore I Am.”
A five year old Jewish girl would have known, intuitively, that sometime somewhere someone like me might be capable of moving items from place to place. So, instead of saying “get away from me” like the dopey assed goyim girl she would have said “Tommy is that drool on your shirt? It looks so cute on you.” Which would have made my schmeckel feel peculiar and want to carry articles from place to place especially for one of those smoking hot Cohen twins
So, all this went down when I was four.
Now, when I turned six, I went to Catechism, Saturdays in the morning. That’s where Nuns teach us about being Catholic. The only thing I remember for sure is one of them saying “Jews are God’s Chosen People.” My first inclination was to say “you gotta be kidding me.” I mean what’s up with me? I’m not chosen?
And then, I’m out on the playground at my public school, and I’m still six, and I’m hanging out with the Cohen twins. They were so cool. I had sort of a crush on each of them, seriatim, so to speak, and we’re doing our thing and this schlumpy guy in our class, Bobby Foster, walks by, and one of the Cohen twins says to the other “there goes Bobby Foster, I wouldn’t marry him if he was the last Jewish man on earth.”
You gotta be kidding me. I’m getting it from the Nuns and I’m getting it from the smoking hot Cohen twins and I’m freaking six!
It’s just not fair. Not only that it doesn’t get better even when you’re over six.
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