Ladies and gentlemen! It’s that time again, of course where everybody dresses up and puts on costumes and makeup, and proceed to make life miserable for me.
Thursday morning, I headed out to Betar, where my parents currently live. It is now become a tradition for my family and for other families to join together for the festival of Purim. The responsibility of arranging multiple alcoholic drinks for the lot of them falls to me.
Having a religion that allows for a son to get his parents completely drunk, no, not allows, encourages this kind of behavior seems a slightly disturbing to me. Am I the only one?
So lot of them managed to drink a lot of my tequila, and I walked out of there with a lighter backpack. I guess I should be happy that I allowed many people to rejoice in the services of the day, but it’s hard because I feel like when I visit them I’m returning to the ghetto.
The complete utter disregard of the law out there surprises even me. As we arrived, we saw a young child of about 11 years old light some sort of explosive firecracker, and hurled it towards a couple of police cars that had parked there.
So I went upstairs to visit and say hello to my mother, who was as always, overjoyed to see me. So we talked for a little bit, which always makes her happy, and then proceeded to load up the car and head over the feast’s host’s house. Arriving there we were the first ones to get there as usual. My father of the himself obviously, was all crazy about having to wash his hands before the feast, as according to him, one must wash their hands before 11:45 a.m. on Friday. This obviously just goes to enforce my belief that they are absolutely insane. So we wash, and sit down and have a few bites the while everyone else slowly rolls in. So after I’ve had my bagel and cream cheese that are oh so filling, and many other people have managed to arrive, I set about my task to get these people as drunk as they want to be.
This is actually easier said than done, as some of these people seem to have a hollow leg. There is much rejoicing and merriment as they are all absolutely stinking drunk by the end of the feast, and I begin to pack up my stuff in order to make it out and catch my bus back to Jerusalem.
Due to the fact that the bus schedules out of there are sketchy at best, I had to run to actually catch the bus to Jerusalem. As I boarded the bus. There were four identically dressed guys in the front row, who asked me for a handout. Now call me crazy, but I don’t believe that any custom of anybody requires me to give money arbitrarily to anyone who asked for it. Apparently, according to some weird custom, anyone who opens their hands is to be handed cash. Does this work on anyone can I asked my bank manager to just give me some money. Or how about Bill Gates? Sometimes the audacity of the customs in the religion drives me nuts.
By the time I got home I was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol as well. And the heat was not that forgiving, especially with me and my leather jacket. So after muscling my way up stairs and into my apartment, I managed to pass out on my bed.
A few hours later, after I had rested and felt ready to reacquaint myself with the universe, I stumbled into the shower and proceeded to take a lukewarm shower that probably damaged some nerve endings. Once moderately presentable and headed out to my friend Kilroy’s place where I had a pleasant dinner or comprising of sushi pasta and salads. Joe and Janet were there as well. We had a nice time together and eventually went home.
At home I got some sleep and woke up this morning refreshed and ready to go.
So this morning I completed bottling my final product of Bottled Sunshine, in anticipation of today’s Munchausen event. After that I sat down here to write this post, but not exactly write more like dictate the post, while battling the dictation software for creative control. Some things are immediately evident and work quite well however others are less easily recognize especially out of context. I can only hope that over extended time the software will improve its recognition of my voice and that I will learn how to speak in more flowing sentences.
I hope to have an update at the end of today, or at best early tomorrow and let you know how things are going.
Until next time, this is Mike.