Story of teh Day 2/ 21/ 2009

At shul.
We were sitting and eating and talking.
In other words, it was a typical after services occasion.
Camouflage came up.
You see, I can go places and not need a disguise, but my husband, my son, and many Jewish men do need one.
Usually a hat.
A baseball cap does wonders.
You see , it hides the yid-lid - the kippah. That thing that blatantly labels them as being “Jewish.”
In New York or Miami , that is not an issue. In our little corner of the Bible Belt, it can be.

But it doesn’t’ always work the way you think it will.

Sukkot. That is the holiday where we build a booth, outside, and hope we did a good enough job that the wind doesn’t’ knock it over.
In the early years, it was a toss up.
Then we got smart and bought a succah kit- complete with a weird little bent piece of metal called a …….shit, what was the name of it? (an alan wrench- my husband has rescued me by providing the word.)

And then we got even smarter- oh yes, and we owned our own house, which made it doable, and we paid real people- I mean people who really can wield a hammer and saw without endangering themselves, to build us a structure we could convert, every year. A “permanent” succah .
So, now all we have to do s to unroll the schach - the covering for the roof- and decorate. Ah!

During the holiday of Sukkot, we are supposed to eat in the succah, and learn in the succah, and , the very brave amongst us, try to sleep in the succah.
This can be…dangerous.
First of all, you can freeze your butt off.
I remember one year, when I lived in Milwaukee, and over a foot of snow fell, one evening.
As far as I know, no one was stupid enough to brave it out, that night.
And then, assuming it isn’t quite that nasty out, there are dangers like the neighbor’s rottweilers, which they keep letting loose.
So, us old fogies, who value our lives, sleep in our beds inside our homes.
But, in our younger days, my husband, in a moment of true religious fervor, decided to buy himself a nice cot to try to brave it out.
So, down in Greenwood- where he works and where the streets are named’ Mistletoe Circle”: and “Christmas Tree Lane” and where many folks have never even met a real live Jew, there is “Joe’s Army Navy Store“.
One of those interesting places where you can buy a fun jacket, or dog tags, or a flag, or a used army cot.
Used army cot.
So, Larry gets one and goes to check out.
He is attired in a coat and one of his better baseball caps.
And the guy working the register leans towards him, and in an undertone says, “You know why God made gentiles?”
“Um, why?” Says my husband who now realized that his cover has been blown.
“Someone has to pay retail.”