By Chaya Linn
Act I –
I’m doing laundry, the day before Pesach.
Kim’s got stupid songs playing,
Take me home, country road…
Sorry about that.
Now you’re humming it, aren’t you?
She likes it, though.
She’s dancing all around as she folds laundry.
Act II
I lost it totally tonight.
I leave for one hour to do a massage with Devorah,
I come home.
The chametz has broken out.
My son is eating life cereal at the table
An entire box of Fruity Pebbles is spilled in the pantry.
And then someone (I won’t say who)
Kicks a bag of flour,
A fine layer of chumutz dust
On everything.
My husband starts announcing
That our home will not be
Kosher for Pesach
And therefore we will not be eating any meal
In our kitchen for the entire Pesach.
And me going,
Chaim, you will kosher my kitchen back to Pesach
Right Now.
And he did.
Until one in the morning.
I make it as miserable as I possibly can for him-
Saying over and over maybe 40 times:
Are we clear, now?
There is no more chumutz, ok?
So no more sneaking around looking
For a sugar fix, right? Ok?
Right? Do we have that straight?
Good, then it’s clear now.
Then I repeat the whole thing.
I had my husband climbing the walls to get away from me.
Sorry, but that’s what I did.
Act III
Man, you really crave something crunchy
Those few days before Pesach.
I type messy, meant to say I’d rather be in EY, and obviously, I misread your post.
And getting back to the original post, isn’t it Post who made those fruity pebbles in the first place?
Mordechai, I might have the take uot food on Main St., but you’re in EY. I’ll trade ya.
I like Charnie’s comment “there’s nothing to eat except take out”.
What’s take out? Some of us only see that when visiting Elsewhere. The nearest take-out to us is about 300 miles. (Rav Welcher suggested today on the phone that maybe we’re here to reveal the hidden k’dusha. He referenced the first Or Hahaim on Masei. It’s well hidden, I can tell you!)
Of course, this year we were with friends who just moved back to Israel (Beit Shemesh). Now *that* was good!
:-)
Somehow, I can envision this as set to a “rap beat”, mainly to get that Country road song out of my brain.
And it all brings home the fact that it’s those few final days leading up to Pesach that are often the hardest – there’s nothing to eat except take out. The Chometz isn’t technically sold, but it is locked away. I’m spoiled because I live in a place where the pizza shops are humming till the last minute.
When the kids were little, we used to pack picnic lunches and eat in the park (weather permitting, which this year it wasn’t). Then I’d make sure they were tired out when we came home later in the afternoon so that they’d nap, and I could clean.
This is wonderful. Terrific poem — poignant and funny. What a treat to see good poetry in my blog aggregator in the morning!