A Sue Story, especially for my Jewish friends...

Spiky Bugger

Spiky Bugger

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I “do” book club with a 10-year-old. The book we are reading reminded me of an event at work almost 50 years ago:

Eight or nine of us in the office, plus the supervisor, Mike, who was Jewish and was wearing a mezuzah necklace.


Pam: Mike! That necklace is really nice.
Mike: Thank you. It was a gift.
Pam: What is the charm?
Mike: It’s a Goy Detector.
Sue, suddenly doubled over in laughter: <choking noises> Goy Detector, ahahaha!
Mike, also laughing: You’re a Mexican! What do you know about Goy Detectors?
Pam: I’m missing something here, right?
Mike: Sue?
Sue: I was the only Mexican at BBG meetings.
Pam: BBG?
Mike: What the hell were you doing at BBG meetings?
Pam: Is that like AA meetings or Weight Watchers?
Sue: AZA meetings were across the hall at the same time and Steve was there and he was cute.
Mike: Well, at least there’s a reasonable explanation.
Sue: I knew you’d understand.
Pam: Are we still talking about his necklace?



(Our book club book is Number the Stars, a story of a Danish family under Nazi occupation who hides a Jewish neighbor girl and smuggles her to safety in Sweden. In the story, the Jewish girl had a Star of David necklace that had to be ripped off in a hurry when Nazi soldiers came into their home. “My” 10-year-old’s mommy, whose mother is a Jew, was listening. So I told her my silly story and she thought it was funny. So I decided to share.)
 
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Cute story! It reminded me of the 3 months I spent bowling during high school because the guy I liked loved bowling. To this day I still can’t believe I lasted that long.
 
MsVee said:
Cute story! It reminded me of the 3 months I spent bowling during high school because the guy I liked loved bowling. To this day I still can’t believe I lasted that long.
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LOL

But hey, that’s kind of how my sister first hit on her late husband!! They worked in the same large office and one day, at the same table in the crowded lunch room, he mentioned something about bowling. She said something along the lines of, “Well, if you’d buy me a drink, I’d come watch.” Four months later, they got married.

Another stupid story: one night during those four months, he stood her up. She correctly assumed that he was having a drink or four with some of his buddies at the bowling alley. She finally called the bowling alley and had him paged. It went something like:

Him: Hello.
Her: !#%*&$, Bob! You asshole. We had a date…an hour ago. Show up when you say you will or get lost!
Him: Uhm...I’m Bob, I think you want my son, Rob.

That was when she learned that, even though he was Bob at work, in his family, his dad…her future father-in-law…the guy she had just cussed out… was Bob and the guy she was dating was Rob.
 
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This genetically Jewish friend had never heard of those organizations, nor wearing a mezuzah as a necklace charm. A Star of David or a chai (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_(symbol)), but not a mezuzah (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah).

I recently bought a mezuzah for our house (we moved here 4 years ago ...), and I need to remind Charles we need to put it on the doorframe.
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That would be uncomfortable to wear.
 
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DianaCox said:
This genetically Jewish friend had never heard of those organizations, nor wearing a mezuzah as a necklace charm. A Star of David or a chai (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_(symbol)), but not a mezuzah (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah).

I recently bought a mezuzah for our house (we moved here 4 years ago ...), and I need to remind Charles we need to put it on the doorframe.
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That would be uncomfortable to wear.
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That is beautiful! He should get that puppy up there.
 
Great story Spiky Bugger and beautiful mezuzah, DianaCox ! They do come in tiny, suitable for wearing sizes also, with the smallest scroll ever inside. I wore one at some point in my life; I wonder whatever happened to it. It was lovely.
 
Also, how weird!

Your SoCal hometown and mine are only 20 miles apart. In my defense, we had A LOT of Jewish neighbors.

Carole Simon was our babysitter. Her parents had a bit of a feud with their next-door neighbors, Mr & Mrs Schwartz. Now, in the other direction, we had Linda Schwartz, no relation to Carole’s neighbors. Mrs Einstein was next door. The Samsons lived across the street from the Marks family and Mrs Marks always had after school cookies for us. The Warshaws and Margels were at the other end of block. lots more..

BUT…maybe I’m the one who grew up in a kibbutz?
 
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We lived in the white trash part of Inglewood. Most of the Jews lived in the much nicer Ladera Heights section, which actually wasn’t in Inglewood, but they somehow got to go to Inglewood schools.

I yearned to be in the Ladera social groups, any of them, but my parents were adamantly not religious, and I had no way in.

Until Bob Cox asked me out, and to his senior prom. For a couple of months, I was one of the cool kids, until he dumped me. (We’re still friends after 50 years, and yes, I did that thing where I practiced signing my name “Diana Cox” back then. Imagine my surprise when I found out Charles’ last name AFTER he announced he was going to marry me, hours after we met IRL after meeting online. And yes, I suspect that they are related some generation back.)
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DianaCox said:
We lived in the white trash part of Inglewood. Most of the Jews lived in the much nicer Ladera Heights section, which actually wasn’t in Inglewood, but they somehow got to go to Inglewood schools.

I yearned to be in the Ladera social groups, any of them, but my parents were adamantly not religious, and I had no way in.

Until Bob Cox asked me out, and to his senior prom. For a couple of months, I was one of the cool kids, until he dumped me. (We’re still friends after 50 years, and yes, I did that thing where I practiced signing my name “Diana Cox” back then. Imagine my surprise when I found out Charles’ last name AFTER he announced he was going to marry me, hours after we met IRL after meeting online. And yes, I suspect that they are related some generation back.)
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My hometown was so poor, we didn’t even HAVE a white trash section...lol. (And no, we were not ALL in a white trash area.)

We also lacked our own school district and telephone prefix. North half of town shared the school district…and telephone number prefix, Catholic Parish and Jewish Temple with the town to our north. The south end did the same with the town to the south.

We had no identity.
 
Mezuzah is up! Dad and Charles overruled my request to mount it at an angle, the traditional way, because it’s a tree and it would look stupid at an angle. Duh.
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DianaCox said:
Mezuzah is up! Dad and Charles overruled my request to mount it at an angle, the traditional way, because it’s a tree and it would look stupid at an angle. Duh.
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You may be in a “diverse within Judaism” family:

  • Ashkenazim place the mezuzah at a slant toward the main room.
  • Jews with Spanish and Middle Eastern ancestry (Sephardim) place the mezuzah vertically.
 

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