Story of the Day 10/20/2011

My friend Susan has quite a collection of kids.
Four of them, but, at times, it feels like many more. Especially when they are picking on one another. Or picking on her.
Apparently, one of their favorite things to annoy one another and to annoy their mother is to poke.
Index finger, poking and poking and poking.
Susan, after being the object of this attention by her daughter said, “When you are a parent and your child does this to you, I want you to call me.”
Sarah he daughter, looked right at her and said, “My child wont’ do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because I will slap him.”


Susan, a couple of decades older and wiser said, “we’ll see.”

Then, one of her son’s started doing it.

“Just wait until your child does that to you!” Susan said to him.
“ I am not having any children. I am going to be one of those bachelor guys who lives down the street,” replied Avi.

And after a pause, he added, “ I am going to have cats.”
”Cats? How many cats?
”28”
“Then you are going to be the crazy bachelor guy who lives down the street.”

Susan told me this story while we were praying. I mean during services, I mean while we were supposed to be praying, or maybe listening to the Torah being read or something like that.
If you haven’t figured it out, I have been a bad influence on Susan.
Susan was not the sort of kid who got into a lot of trouble when she was in school for doing things like reading a novel during math class, or forgetting the teacher was lecturing and standing on her desk and trying to see if her finger would fit into the space of the ice cube tray florescence light cover.
She was the sort of kid who probably got straight A’s and nice comments on her reports cards like “ a pleasure to have in class”.
She even looks innocent.
Of course, that was before she had me as her friend and found out that ADD is contagious.
Hopefully, she at least thinks this is more fun.

So, she told me this during services, and then after services, I had to share the 23 cat story.
I would have shared it during services, but it was really my husband’s story, so , I told him to tell it, after services when we were eating lunch.
Most synagogues have Kiddush- a light snack- after morning services on Saturday.
Our synagogue happens to have its priorities straight.
We have lunch.

Many years ago, when I had quite a lot less grey hair and my husband was clean-shaven, we lived in Zanesville, Ohio
No, this is not a joke.
We lived there and he had, in his practice, a patient who had 23 cats.
This same patient was also very hard of hearing.
My husband would yell things at him like” How have you been doing?”
And he would yell back, “ What did you say, Doc?”

My husband related this to me, as an amusing anecdote of his work experiences, and then, one day, I found out who the patient was.
You see, my husband told me those two things, but never shared the name of the patient, or what his health needs were, or even how old he was or his race. Gosh, he didn’t even tell me if he was a Republican or Democrat, but since it was Zanesville and our re-elect John Glenn sign kept disappearing from our yard and had to be replaced on an almost daily basis, I figured he probably was a Republican.
I wasn’t basing this on the high mortality rate of our yard signs, based on the fact that the only other John Glenn signs in the city were the one across the street from us, and the one in front of a house one block from us.
We Democrats were a very endangered species, in that neck of the woods.

There was actually a second part to this story.
Yeah, the story I seem to have wandered away from.
The 23 cat part.
This guy was ill , one time, and Larry’s nurse was a very sweet and kind, and Midwestern, and she went and got his prescriptions filled and then stopped at his house to drop them off.
Apparently, she had to knock and ring and knock and ring, because his hearing, I mean his not hearing, extended to knocking and to doorbells.
Eventually, he realized someone was at the door and opened it.
And the blast of “ cat” hit her, when he opened to door, and she almost passed out.

At any rate, his identity was uncovered, one day, when we went to one of the two grocery stores on the north side of Zanesville.
Zanesville is laid out as a very tall and narrow rectangle, so if you live on the north side, that means, as far as you were concerned, back then, that there were only two grocery stores, well, and a meat market.
Since we were vegetarians, at that time, we’ll call it an even two grocery stores.
I assume there was a place to buy groceries on the Southside of town, but since I only ever went down there when I had gotten lost….
So, there we were at the grocery store, and this guy noticed my husband and made his way over to us, and to the shopping cart my husband was pushing. My husband said, “Hello” and pointed to our extremely hyperactive 2 year old seated in the shopping cart he was pushing and introduced our daughter.
By shouting.
The man then shouted back, “What did you say, Doc?”

But that is not the important part of the story; the important part was what it means to be the old bachelor guy with 28, not just 23 cats.
Not just the crazy bachelor guy down the street,
But the crazy, smelly bachelor guy down the street.