Story of the Day 4/ 13/ 2014

Passover is coming.
I know it because my house smells like bleach, and that weird smell from when I run the self clean cycle on the oven.
There are also scads of things pulled from cabinets or being put into them.

I can also tell because Sarah has texted me from Wegmans.
Sarah is at college in Rochester, New York. She lives in a dorm.

During the school, year she survives by eating vegetarian and salad bar selections from the cafeteria, and by having stockpile of Cheerios and Madras Lentil packets in her dorm room.

But with Passover coming, she cannot eat anything from the cafeterias, not even the lettuce from the salad bar, so she is scrambling.

There is a convenience store in the basement of the dorms. They had some grape juice and some matzoh, and macaroons.
They also have apples.

Okay, that is a start, just not a very good one, so she has grabbed her roommate to serve as a pack mule (hey, one kid can only carry so much), and they have taken the bus to Wegmans, which is the local grocery store.

The first text is a sad one.
Wegmans is out of Temp Tee.
This would be a bigger tragedy, except that Sarah is Jewish, and she started panicking about food about 2 weeks ago, and bought a few at that foray to Wegmans.
She would have bought more, but the expiration date had her panicked that the Temp Tee would spoil before the middle of the Passover holiday.

I texted her to check out the Philadelphia cream cheese.
Temp Tee is this much fancier, whipped and kosher for Passover item that we love, but Philadelphia will do, if you cannot get Temp Tee. Philadelphia brand cream cheese comes , regular year, with no certification for Passover, but starting about a week before the holiday, specially marked packages of it start showing up in all of the refrigerator cases in the various grocery stores. God Bless Kraft!

Another text, she has found it , but it isn’t marked kosher for Passover.

Since I am doing my Passover shopping, as well, I hurry to the refrigerator aisle at Marsh.
I locate the Passover Philadelphia cream cheese, and text her where the heksher ( kosher mark) is for Passover.
This year it is hidden on the side of the box, although, larger than it was, last year.
She finds it.

Then she texts me and asks what kasha is.
Kasha is what people who do not know how to say my name call me.
I am not joking.
I also do not usually bother to correct them.
They think I am a food.
Oh well.

It is also this really weird thing that Ashkenazic Jews make and serve mixed in with bow tie noodles.
It is rather disgusting, except to them. They seem to like it.
While I am not totally sure what it is I know it is chametz- it is a grain product and not okay for Passover, even if the store employees have stuck it in the Passover section.
I text back to her that it is not okay for Passover.

I do not explain that some people call me that.
Sarah is deaf, it would make no sense to her.

Several texts later, my cell phone falls silent, and I figure she is doing better.
I go home.
Much later, we Skype and Sarah tells me what happened at the store.
After she checked out.

Sarah and her roommate were outside the store at the bench waiting for the bus. Sarah was rearranging her groceries, moving things from bag to backpack. She pulls out the spaghetti sauce- and it goes flying up and out of her hands.

It misses hitting a man, but explodes onto the cement.

Sarah is aghast. She is a bit embarrassed, and she is also crushed.
That was her one jar of spaghetti sauce- meant to last her all of Passover.
She starts to pick up some of the larger pieces of glass.

A man comes over and talks to her. She gestures thats she is deaf.
He tells her to leave it; he will get someone to clean it up.
A man in uniform comes out and starts to clean it up.
A third man, in a nice shirt and tie, who also works for the store, comes out. He tells Sarah not to pick up the glass; they will take care of it.
He explains where she can wash her hands.
Other customers see the red stain and steer clear.
The man, with the tie, picks up the label – the piece of glass with the label from the sauce and goes back into the store.

Sarah’s roommate spots a man they know, a teacher at the college, headed into the store. He is with his son who is wearing an orange baseball cap. She wants to get their attention, but Sarah tells her they are too far away. Sarah tells her just to let the guy know they saw him at the store- him and his son with the orange cap.

Two women come over they are dressed nicely. One is white and one is black and they are in their 40’s.
They ask the girls, in ASL, if they are coming to the program, tomorrow.
The Program?
It is something about Jesus.
Sarah smiles and takes the invitation. She explains to me that saying "No" would have started them off on a roll, and she would prefer to avoid it.
While we are Skyping, she shows me the invitation, which is a tad comical.
It announces that "Yes, even those Deafies can be saved", they have an interpreter just for them!

I am not kidding.

At any rate, as the women turn to leave one of them remarks that she saw them talking about boys.
She winks at them.
They were, about the teacher’s son and the orange cap, but, obviously, not in the wink-wink way that the woman meant.
Obviously, her comprehension of sign language leaves a bit to be desired.

Then, from across the parking lot, the father of the boy with the orange cap spots them- waves big and comes over and says “Hi!"

And just after that, the man with the tie, reappears.
He has looked and looked and can’t find the brand of sauce that Sarah broke.

Sarah gestures for a pad of paper. She writes down that it was from the Passover section.
He puts his palm to his forehead- “Oh!”
He runs back into the store, finds the Passover sauce and brings her a jar.

Sarah is a mite embarrassed, after all, her clumsiness broke it, but she is happy to have the jar, so that she will not starve.

Well, whatever it is that happens when you do not have a jar of spaghetti sauce on Passover.