The Privileged Few

Last night, I stopped at the local supermarket to buy goodies and snackies for the individuals with whom I rehearse. I'm one half of the hospitality committee and so, if I show up at rehearsals with, to paraphrase from the original Godfather, "just my dick in my hand" I feel somewhat embarrassed.

After all, nobody's going to snack, are they? At least, no one I'd care to invite.

As I tooled around the parking lot of the supermarket, aimlessly searching for the spot that would get me the closest to the entrance in view of the pelting, freezing rain, I pulled my car into a spot and was just about to put the bitch into "park" when I saw a sign that sent me into a fucking rage.

"RESERVED FOR THOSE PICKING UP ON-LINE ORDERS."

What?

"That's a new one, guy," I thought to myself as I punched the Chrysler emblem on my steering wheel. I mean, are they kidding me? Do the rotund schlubs sitting at home in front of their computers in their stinky, cheese-laden slippers and their tattered, careworn, Dorito-fart underwear, clicking away at pictures of boneless pork shoulder and dehydrated Knorr meals deserve a better spot than me, just because they condescend to pop by to pick up their order?

Why, might I ask, do they need a special fucking space? I'm carrying out bags of groceries the same as they are, aren't I? Do they just presume that, if you're ordering at home you're some sort of mental or physical degenerate, stewing in your own milky feces whilst slamming your bicycle-helmeted head into the corner of your desk? Do they assume that your aged mama is swinging by in your handicap-accessible Town & Country van to pick up your Veetavitagegimen and your Lactatortots while you rock back and forth in the back of the van, listening to synthesized children's music from the 1980s?

Believe me-- people who order groceries from home are not

...special.

...special (in that way).

...deserving of special parking spots.

...attractive.

And, if it's not the lazy shitbirds ordering ribroast online who get first crack at the good supermarket parking spots, it's expectant mothers. Or mothers with small children. I mean, where does this insanity end? I liked it better when there were just a couple spots designated for the handicapped/persons with disabilities, incessant dribblers-- whatever you're supposed to call them these days. I don't care-- give them their spots with the little man sitting in the big circle thing, that's fine. And, if some bastard in a BMW parks there and jumps out of his car wearing loafers and no socks, ambling with no difficulty whatsoever into the store-- then his car should be fire-bombed and he should have his legs broken by Kathy Bates-- that's okay with me, too.

But that's where it should stop. With the disabled. There's nothing wrong with goddamn expectant mothers that they can't walk another seven goddamn feet across the parking lot. What does ACME and Giant and Wegman's think is going to happen? That somebody's kid is going to be born with Kleinfelter's Syndrome because mom had to park her Previa all the hell way down by the shopping cart return?

Come on.

And mothers with small children? No offense, mothers with small children, but fuck them! Nobody forced them to have small children. If a clown car full of pygmies pulled into the lot of the local Shop N' Bag, everybody would expect those cute little fuckers to hoof it across the lot. What's wrong with being small? It's good for kids to walk, especially if they're small. Children, ladies and gentlemen, are portable, in case you didn't know. They're not heavy rocks or big lumps of iron. You can carry them, or they can walk. Fuck-- put them on a goddamn skateboard-- just move their asses and let them know that life is hard and sucking it up and growing up ASAP is the only answer.

We just want to coddle our kids and, as a fellow lazy American, I understand that urge. But remember the Puritans and shit. They would never have accepted the charity of a special parking spot. I mean, it would look ridiculous.

"Reserved for Puritans Only."

That's just silly.

I'm not saying, of course, that I don't think anybody should be permitted to have a special spot at the supermarket, and I'm certainly not saying that I think I should have a special spot. But I just don't see why assholes who order groceries online and come to the store to pick up, or expectant mothers, or mothers with small children should have treatment on par with people whose legs don't work.

I am, however, in favor of preferential parking spots to recognize people who are deserving of special treatment for one reason or another. Here are some signs I would like to see in the parking lots of local food marts:

"Reserved for Any Catholic Priest Who Has Never Finger-Banged a Minor"

"Reserved for Walmart Employees Who Come to Work Sober"

"Reserved for Telemarketers Who Have Attempted or at Least Pondered Suicide"

"Reserved for People Who Understand When to Use You're and Your"

"Reserved for Jewish Women Who Do Not Speak in a Shrill, Shrewish Tone"

"Reserved for Registered Sex Offenders Who Don't Have Three First Names (i.e., "Jim Bob Lee")"

"Reserved for Police Officers Who Do Not Have Crew-Cuts"

"Reserved for Attractive Women Who Consistently Display Cleavage, Even When It's Cold"

"Reserved for People Who Appreciate Peter Sellers Films"

"Reserved for Anyone Who Traded in a Hummer After a Religious Awakening"

"Reserved for Black People" (because, let's face it, they've had it rough.)

"Reserved for Men Who Have Women's Names (i.e., "Beverly," "Carol," "Stephanie")"

"Reserved for Anyone Who Thinks Fibromyalgia Is Total Bullshit"

"Reserved for American Who Isn't Currently 60 or More Pounds Overweight"

"Reserved for People Who Have Never Considered Writing Into Dear Abby"

"Reserved for Pennsylvanians Who Aren't Attracted to Blood Relatives"

"Reserved for People Who Can Quote Entire Episodes of 'Fawlty Towers' from Memory"

"Reserved for Civil War Reenactors Who Get That It's Just a Hobby"

"Reserved for Sex Workers"

and, of course,

"Reserved for Followers of My Masonic Apron"

Ladies & Gentlemen, Make Way for Robo-Medic

I first became worried that the robots were going to take over for you and me when they began installing self-check out lanes at the grocery store. Even though they still need a supervisor to be on-hand to scope out the scene for thieves and imbeciles, it's pretty much just you and the scanny-thingy. Although my interactions with grocery store clerks are often rote, formulaic and exasperating, we're still fostering the bonds of human interpersonal communication. Even the clerk who tried to talk to me about baseball was doing a yeoman's job of forging ahead with the luminous and lofty goal of human contact.

And good for him.

It's easy to forget, though, that robots have been around for a while. They've been pretty much building our cars for a while now. That cute little Roomba bastard is soon going to replace Consuela, the green-card coveting house-wench who has to take the bus to your 4br, 2ba brick colonial from her rickety rowhome en el barrio. And I'm quite sure that the Japanese are, right at this moment, working out the schematics for a life-sized, self-lubricating companion.

And good for them.

But if the preponderance of ATMs, automated car-washes, and cyber-waiters isn't enough to convince you that the era of human dominance is at an end, I present you with the Lucas 2.

Yes, ladies & gents: it's an automated CPR machine, and not only is it better than you, it's better than the Lucas 1.

Because I am an emergency medical technician living in the heady daze of street-retirement, I still sometimes get emails from a website called http://www.jems.com/, which is the official website of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. They have interesting, engaging articles about medics who get into roadside brawls with state troopers, news about continuing education and re-certification, the latest advances in treating Diabetty and Heart Attack Jack and, yes, product announcements. Products like the coolest new blue whacker light-bar for you to put on top of your Dodge Caravan, or cool perforated leather gloves you can wear so your grip doesn't slip while you're lifting a stretcher containing 520-pound Bertha McSupersize. Products like the Lucas 2.

Folks, the era of automated, robotic CPR has arrived.

So, here's the deal. You're eating dinner at Windsor Palace. Sir Cerebral Strokesalot goes down while consuming his leg of mutton that is embossed with the likeness of Elizabeth II. The fire brigade is summoned but you, with your quick-thinking and cunning skills, notice a box on the wall that is marked "LUCAS 2: Break Glass Only In Emergency." You run over to it. Being British, you are consumed with guilt at smashing an object and causing a disturbance, so you gently tap on the glass with your shrimp fork until it shatters. You remove the Lucas 2, which looks very much like a pogo stick for midgets, and you race over to Sir Strokesalot. You plop the thing on top of his sternum and press the button that says "Press Here to Wake the Dead," and the Lucas 2 goes into action. Up and down that thing goes like a sonofabitch. There are horrified gasps from the crowd. Ladies swoon, and so do the men, because they're all English and gay and shit. The fire brigade finally comes and they're all like, "Oy! What's all this then!?" And you'll be all like, "Look! Me and Lucas 2 revived this twiggy motherfucker!" And then you'll be hanged for using language like that in front of the Queen, you bloody vulgarian.

Yeah. So, seriously-- there's a CPR machine.

Be afraid.

I don't know how I feel about it. Part of me is looking at it from the point of view of a collapsing civilian which, as an incurable hypochondriac, I'm always afraid of becoming, and the other part of me is looking at it from the perspective of a pre-hospital provider, which I was and, though inactively still am, and may one day be again. Who knows? The potentially collapsing civilian in me is very skeptical of this thing because, if a normal person doing chest compressions is liable to break a few of my brittle, ginger ribs, a fucking machine is probably going to break all of them.

The pre-hospital provider in me is skeptical of this machine because it seems like a very expensive way to do the same thing that human beings can do anyway. Yes, the machine doesn't get tired after thirty minutes of chest compressions like humans would but, realistically, if you're doing CPR on someone for thirty minutes either by yourself or with a machine-- stop and face facts: he's fucking dead, so what's the difference if the machine can go on and on for an hour and not get "tired?" Any pre-hospital provider who has a shred of honesty or intelligence will tell you that that CPR without the assistance of an Automated External Defibrillator has an extremely low/poor success rate-- so, why spend the money when you can just as easily send two EMTs to the scene making $11.00/hr to bang on somebody's chest? It's just one more thing that has to be inspected every year, can break and requires man hours to train people how to use.

I mean, forget the automatic chest-compression device. What would really be great would be an air compressor attached to a pair of robot lips so that you wouldn't have to put your mouth on some Herpes-scabbed homeless motherfucker. Now that's a CPR machine I'd support.

Of course, you know perverts would just buy it for their own sordid purposes.

And good for them.

Sometimes, the Supermarket Really is Less Than Super

Bloggers, a word to the wise & otherwise:

If you ever find yourself feverishly and ceaselessly itching the scabby pustule that is writer's block, take my advice: go food shopping.

You will encounter any number of blogworthy topics, whether you feel the need to decry the insidious price-jacking of a small, plastic bottle of Cheerios marketed at the mothers of toddlers that costs $2.99 for one ounce of Cheerios (it was marked down to $1.99, though. Gee, thanks for using lube, pa.) or whether you're particularly grossed out by the vacant, open-mouthed expressions on the deceased rainbow trout beaching themselves on ice-- you'll never leave the supermarket without a tasty idea for your little bloglette.

Trust me.

Today, Mrs. Apron and I went to the supermarket because we needed/wanted produce. We had our hearts set on going to this little Korean produce market, but, alas, it was closed on Sundays. (Weeknights, it's opened until 6:45pm. Seriously, it says that on the sign. Not 6:30, not 7:00-- but six forty-five. Mm-hmm.) So, disappointed but unstoppable in our underpowered PT Cruiser, we putted our way to the local Genaurdi's. I mean, we had even remembered to bring our cloth tote bags and everything.

So, we're at Genaurdi's and we're not even ten minutes into our shopping experience when some woman slams her fat ass into a 6 foot tall cardboard display filled with boxes of specialty "Mighty Leaf" teabags. She stared at the boxes of tea now littering the area and she emitted two small, monosyllabic words, words that you probably would think twice about uttering as loudly and as dramatically as she did in a public place:

"Oohhhhh. Fuuuuck."

Oh fuck. They say that the last words most commonly uttered by pilots at the controls of doomed aircrafts are, "Oh, shit." I guess that's just what you say when you're about to die in a plane crash. I guess "Oh, fuck" is just what you say when you make a complete ass out of yourself in the middle of a supermarket.

Thinking that she was going to in short order pitch in and start apologetically cleaning up her mess as any klutzy, responsible citizen would do, I automatically walked over to the mess and picked up the cardboard display and set it right. Then, I picked up a box of the tea and put it back on the display. There were approximately nineteen boxes left on the floor.

"Oh, man," she said again, aloud, to nobody in particular, "I really just did that, didn't I?"

Um, yeah. You really did. Now can you pull your fingers out of your asshole and help me clean this shit up?

She, of course, did no such thing. She actually bent down to pick up a box, and then she basically just moved it on the floor. She did not put a single box of tea up on the display. I put three boxes back on the display, and then my wife came over and did her share by putting back one box. The fat pig then motioned either to us or to a Genaurdi's employee, I didn't really see, and she said,

"Oh, they'll just clean it up."

Whether she was talking about us or the Genaurdi's employee, it's offensive and cuntytwat. To presume that my wife and I, who, for some reason, had taken the initiative to clean up this hogtit's mess would just continue dutifully putting boxes back until it was all done was outrageous, and my wife and I immediately stopped putting the boxes back and we walked away. To presume that you can make a mess in a supermarket and that "those people who work here" will just clean up after you without even making a goddamn effort to do it yourself is also classist and appalling.

I learned in pre-school, as I'm pretty sure a lot of kids did, that, if you make a mess, you're the one who's supposed to clean it up. Now, obviously that doesn't apply in every situation. It probably wouldn't have been right to take the captain of the Exxon Valdez and throw him in the fucking oil-slicked ocean with a toilet brush and a pair of flippers, but, most of the time, clean up your own mess is pretty much where it's at as far as the social constructs of our society go.

Some people, though, really like to think that they can just float through life, oblivious to all the things that their fat asses knock over because, well, there'll always be somebody to clean it up. Guess what, pigdog, I'm not your maid. I don't even have a maid. I want one, but I don't have one. And, if I did, I'd probably feel so guilty that some poor bitch was coming over to clean up my mess that I'd spend the morning of her visits cleaning.

Sometimes a little good old fashioned guilt is good for people. It keeps them humble. It makes them clean up their own messes.

The Morning Off

Some of you rabid, trembling addicts might notice that my morning blog is a tad later in coming than usual.

That's because, for services above and beyond the call of duty this weekend, I was graciously offered the morning off by my employer, and I graciously accepted.

But I didn't spend it stinking around in bed, though-- oh, no.

No.

Though it's only 9:10am, I've been a productive little bastard already.

I ate breakfast with and saw off dear Mrs. Apron at 7:15. Walked dog. Picked up shit. ("Oh, thank you for doing that! You know, my husband would be the one who would step right in that if you didn't pick up! Welcome to the neighborhood!")

Drove to the supermarket.

Strange people are at the supermarket at 7:35am on a Monday morning. I saw at least three nurses, or, at least, women in scrubs. You never know who's a nurse anymore. Everybody wears scrubs. I don't know why-- I guess because it's easy and people like to look like nurses. It's interesting that, fifty years ago, when nurses wore white dresses and little cloth hats with red crosses on them that janitors and housekeepers didn't emulate that particular style. I guess that's a good thing. People think scrubs are comfortable, but I don't. I have one pair of scrubs that I wear to sleep in, and the seam cuts right inside my asshole. Maybe some people like that.

There was also a man buying nine 2 liter bottles of Nestea. Nothing else. I was suspicious of his motives.

I brought two cloth bags with me to the market. The environment and I have a tenuous relationship. She gets along a lot better with my wife. I have a hard time acclimating myself to doing right by the environment, because there's rather a lot to remember. I'm more often than not inclined to angrily and mechanically throw junk mailers in the garbage can without thinking to recycle them. I frequently cannot be bothered to turn over a goddamn Chinese takeout container and squint and hold it under the light to ascertain whether it's a 1 or a 2 inside the fucking triangle. I try. God help me, I do. Many, many times, I try to remind myself to bring cloth bags to the supermarket but, often, I just plain old forget. And the plastic bags they give out (for free!) at the market are so, so useful for dog shit. I can't pick up that in a chic Whole Foods cloth bag.

But today, I remembered. I remembered to take the cloth bags out of the house and put them in the car. I remembered to take them out of the car. I remembered to shove them into the grocery cart.

I just forgot to put the groceries in them.

See, when I get to the checkout line, I'm a maniac. For me, bagging groceries is the equivalent of a NASCAR pit stop. If it's not done in under 8.64 seconds, I'm a failure. First of all, I hate standing there while somebody else bags for me. I feel like those people who bring their cars to the car wash and then get out while some Hispanic guy with four teeth vacuums out the car, puts it into neutral and sends it through for you, while you stand there in your fucking Ray Bans and slicked back hair and madras shorts and point at all the spots he missed while he's thinking about raping your wife.

I especially hate standing there while the blind bagger at ACME bags my groceries. I just can't do it.

So, I bag. And I bag fast. Look at me go! I'm fucking fast! I don't want to inconvenience anybody by being slow or haggling about the price of pork chops or asking if I can go back to see if Bounty X-tra Thirsty is on sale this week. I don't want anybody to stand behind me and roll their eyes or check their watch surreptitiously give me the finger inside their pants pocket. I don't even want to slow up the pervert buying all that iced tea for the cultish orgy he's hosting tonight. So, in my haste to bag faster than you can say "OCD," I totally neglected to use the cloth bags.

Sorry, Mother Nature. I fucked up, yo.

After returning home, I decided that I should attend to home maintenance chores that have been somewhat ignored during the last couple of weeks I have been involved in tech and dress rehearsals for the show I was in this weekend. The hedges that I had meticulously cut a few weeks ago now looked like the Green Giant's afropubes on crack and I was not pleased. So, before the church bells in the distance struck 8:00am, I was out there with the hedge clippers. Although they really only needed a trim, because I am obsessive and anal, I gave them a buzz cut and, Earthlovers, you'll be so proud of me, I even put all the clippings in the lawn recycling refuse bag! Yay, me!

Then, I turned my attention to the weeds. Mrs. Apron and I had done some perfunctory weeding around a month ago, but nothing since then. Well, the thing about weeding is, it's really, really fucking awesome-- especially if you have obsessive compulsive tendencies. If you're a superfreak, weeding is like Pringles-- once you pop, you can't stop! It's so cathartic to hear those roots snap as they yield to your powerful grip.

DIE, MOTHAFUCKAS, DIE! DIE, MOTHAFUCKAS, DIE!

*Sigh.* It's a beautiful thing.

We bought this house in February on a short sale, which means that the bank was in charge of the sale, because the previous owners had ceased paying their mortgage. And their real estate taxes. And their school taxes. And their sewer bill. And, presumably, most other bills. Though I'm not exactly sure, I'd be willing to bet there is a real correlation between the amount of bills a homeowner stops paying to the amount of weeds that grow in his/her yard. Let me tell you, at 8:00am today, this house looked like a fucking jungle. Yes, neighbors were staring at me as I, clad in a dress shirt and slacks, was methodically hunting down and strangling the life out of nefarious looking weeds on a weekday morning, but it had to be done. This is a house where people pay their fucking bills and pull their fucking weeds now.

Now it is.

It's a beautiful thing to have the morning off.

At the Supermarket

Mrs. Apron & I went to the supermarket tonight.

Since we've moved to this neighborhood, going to the supermarket has become a less enjoyable experience, and the decrease in enjoyability (that's like "drinkability," right?) of food shopping can be directly correlated with the increase in the encounters with people we know but don't necessarily like.

We ran into a lot of people we know at the supermarket tonight.

I'm very bad at running into people. I'd like to pretend that I'm real good at pretending to be happy to see you, but we all know that I'm not. We all know that it's awkward and unconvincing and lame. We all know that I'd rather be shopping for groceries in Salt Lake City, where my chances of running into somebody I know are about the same as the chances of impregnating a water buffalo. I would shop there, actually, but, by the time I'd make it back to Pennsylvania, the ice cream would melt.

I could probably be better at faking my pleasure in seeing people I know if only I worked at it a little, but I can't really seem to bring myself to do that. That takes effort, and I'm usually kind of low on that particular commodity. I can usually sense when it's going to happen, though-- when we're likely to run into people we know. It's like an aura. My nipples start to itch, I develop strange muscle spasms. I cry.

"How many do you think it's going to be tonight?" I asked my wife as we trudged toward our doom in the supermarket parking lot like the Light Brigade.

3, as they say, was the magic number.

At one point, when we were at the checkout counter, I observed another person we know but don't like.

"Turn around," I uttered between clenched teeth to Mrs. Apron.

"What?" she said, turning in the precise direction of the PBA (person being avoided).

"JESUS! THIS WAY!" I instructed, sputtering all over our groceries.

This time, she appropriately buried herself in the pages of a "Women's Day" magazine.

While it's always a trying experience at the market, dodging PBA's and inconvenient, painful smalltalk that drives one to the brink of insanity, by far the most unsettling, unnatural, uncouth moment of our shopping experience occured when we were least expecting it, in the frozen foods aisle.

Behold, world:

I Love Jew, Really I Do...

Note: The following would probably be better suited if it were directed at a therapist. Due, however, to the shitty insurance that I carry and the free nature of the blogosphere, it is instead presented herein as a blog entry.

I'm sure you don't mind.

I've noticed lately that I have a really difficult time being in situations where I am surrounded by Jews.

This is a somewhat strange problem, being that I am Jewish.

I didn't seem to mind it very much when I was younger, but I definitely do mind it now, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm pretty sure that something's wrong with me, and that nothing much is wrong with them.

This past weekend, my wife and mother-in-law journeyed down to a hyper-Jewish area in Baltimore. I can't remember the name of the town-- it doesn't matter. Now, I grew up in what I thought was a Jewish neighborhood-- you know, lots of synagogues all over, people walking to schul, a Bloomingdales within twenty miles. This place, though, made my hometown look like Butte, Montana. Case in point, I was a little hungry having forgotten to eat breakfast that Sunday morning. "No problem," my mother-in-law said, "There's a Subway over there on the right."

"And it's Glatt-Kosher."

Hmmm... kind of takes the fun out of everything, I thought, but what the hell? I entered this restaurant and was immediately overwhelmed by JEWISHNESS. Every female over the age of naught had a skirt going almost down to the ankle, lest we lascivious men be tempted by the sight of an uncovered heel. Hair was worn in an identically unflattering fashion-- and it was difficult to tell whose black hair was a wig and whose was real. Many tables were filled with young couples and an average of five small children each. The elderly Jewish men puttered around, exercising their jowls, hiking their stained pants up to their sagging nipples and ordering crazy sandwiches.

There was a sink with a metal cup and a towel by the counter, which I stared at, at first mistaking it for an emergency eyewash station. Some Jew I am, right?

Speaking of which, I received another reminder of my ignorance and idiocy when I tried to order my sandwich with the herb and cheese bread, found at any other Subway in the universe.

"Sir, have you never been to this particular Subway?" the African-American woman behind the counter inquired. Oh, Jesus, I thought, how could I be so fucking stupid? I was about to get a lecture on kashrut from a black girl.

"This particular Subway," she mechanically recited, "is a kosher establishment. What that means is: we do not serve any dairy product with any meat product. Kosher eating is a--"

"Right, yeah, okay, thanks," I interrupted. Can I have.... uh.... um....."

My tired eyes scanned the various meat objects proffered by this "particular Subway kosher establishment." I'd love to meet the rabbi who certified this restaurant-- he's probably more corrupt than the crookedest cop who ever raided an evidence locker. All of the meat that I could see was gray. Lots of gray, nondescript, floppy things. Gristle and fat hung off each sliver like dozens and dozens of small leeches, like a gelatainous curtain, like a... a.... oh, God....

I stared at the menu offerings like I had just arrived from Jupiter.

"I'll have a chicken and beef fry sandwich, please," I said, sealing my doom.

"Do you want parve cheese on that?" Parve cheese, I thought. That must be made out of potato flakes and wood shavings.

"No thank you."

I ate three bites of this sandwich before throwing it out, and, fortunately and miraculously, not up. It was like biting into a living jellyfish, covered with pickles and Southwest Chipotle sauce.

I was just happy to get the fuck out of that restaurant. As if the indignity of being lectured about my own religion from someone who learned about it from a PowerPoint presentation by Subway Foods, Inc. wasn't bad enough, I felt surrounded by people with whom I'm supposed to identify, but don't. All the men with beards and yarlmukes, all the women with large hineys and schmatas. All the children, all, all, all the children, some with strange defects. The old people with food on their chins. All the ccchuufffing, and choffffing. I'd say it reminded me of my grandfather, but it didn't. He never cccchhffed and choffffed. He was just there, saying inappropriate things and selling men's trousers.

I needed to leave.

Later in the day, my mother-in-law decided that she wanted to stop in a store called for "a couple things for Passover." I assumed we would be in whatever store this was for approximately eight to ten minutes, for matzah and.... I don't know.... matzah? This turned into an hour-long shopping extravaganza in a Jewish supermarket, the likes of which I have never, ever seen.

Can you guess that I won't be signing up for a "Jewpermarket Frequent Buyer Keychain Card?"

There were Jewish people everywhere, and that makes sense. Buying herring pieces in fluid and kosher hot dog buns and things that I have no idea what they even are, because the product name, nutrition information and ingredients are all in Hebrew-- a language which, I guess, you're supposed to know if you want to shop here.

The middle-aged couple in front of us in the checkout line had two shopping carts, filled to the kosher gills. Grand total for them?

$791.36

Now, sure, they were doing some Passover shopping. I can't imagine that this is their total every week, but JESUS CHRIST! The last time I spent that much money on something I was.... well, I have no idea what it was. Probably auto insurance.

I just don't understand what's wrong with me-- why I bristle so in situations where I'm surrounded by "my own people." Maybe it's because I'm jealous of them, that they're so facile and so ensconsed by the religion that it's just as easy as breathing for them, and because it's something that I was always expecting would embrace me, when, really, religion is something that you have to, at least initially, embrace on your own.

Maybe I'm just a hostile, intolerant asshole who doesn't like what he doesn't understand.

Maybe I need to start seeing a therapist.

A nice, Jewish one.