Jewish mothers are a special kind of funny. I didn’t have one, to my great disappointment. My mother was a strict Catholic, another flavor of crazy mom entirely. More about that another day. But I was always envious of my Jewish friends because their mothers were so screamingly funny, so deviously passive aggressive, so brilliantly dry, they made me laugh no matter what they were doing. (Come to think of it, they may have thought I was a little simple. Oh, well.) It’s no wonder so many Jewish kids grow up to be comedians. It’s either that, or go mad.
Beloved got us a subscription to The New Yorker, my favorite publication since childhood. This may seem unrelated to the paragraph above, but bear with me. Every time something big happens, we run right out and buy the next issue, gorge ourselves on its contents, reading to each other with glee, finally framing the cover and hanging it on our wall. We’ve had subscriptions before, but the things always came in faster than I could read them, and then they’d pile up, and Beloved would start tapping her foot while staring at the pile and sighing. Eventually, I’d give up and throw them out, mostly unmolested. We agreed we wouldn’t subscribe again until we were retired. (We picture retirement as a wonderland filled with all the things we’ve never had time for. We may be disappointed.) Then out of a clear blue sky at breakfast, she announced she’d gotten a subscription from now until the election in November. Imagine my joy! I immediately started binge-reading on the website, but this piece stopped me dead, so to speak.
The piece, “Obituaries My Mother Wrote for Me While I Was Living in San Francisco in My Twenties,” is fantastically funny, and I thought it would be perfect for reading aloud at the table when you’re trying to get your beloved to do a spit take. I tested this theory with great success. Here’s a sample, though I’d like you to go to The New Yorker for the full piece. Definitely worth the click. I promise.
“Our hearts are broken as we announce the demise of our daughter Bess Kalb, twenty-seven, who was taken from us by a Lyft driver. And dismembered. Despite learning at the youngest possible age never to get into a strange man’s car, Bess, ever the techno-optimist, decided to enter her home address into an app, hop into a Hyundai, and hope for the best. The family would like mourners to treat Bess’s death as more or less a suicide.” -Bess Kalb for The New Yorker
I have a new favorite writer! Here’s the article. Don’t forget to share your spit-take successes in the comments!
July 31, 2016 at 7:39 am
I loved this post! So funny, esp. the TEDtalk reference.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:35 am
She’s brilliant!
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July 31, 2016 at 8:11 am
Oh my word! That’s hilarious. I think that mother might be my new maternal role model.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:40 am
So funny. You have to check out this one, too:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/hillary-clintons-personal-e-mails-to-me
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July 31, 2016 at 9:49 am
Ha ha!
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July 31, 2016 at 9:50 am
I love her! I hope they keep her.
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August 4, 2016 at 12:00 am
I did, hilarious.
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August 4, 2016 at 12:15 am
She’s really a great talent. I hope we see a lot more from her.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:36 am
That’s the second time I have seen you use ‘spit-take’. I had never heard it before (it’s the isolation here in Australia). So I asked Mr Google and nearly had a spit take. Who would have thought there was actually a word (or two) for that. Very funny.
So are the obits.
Cheers.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:49 am
Spit-takes are the main reward for performing a good stand-up routine. Mostly because the money is terrible.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:41 am
I don’t know how to characterize my laugh. It isn’t a ha ha. It isn’t a hee hee. Onomatopoeia is failing me right now.
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July 31, 2016 at 9:50 am
I’m pretty sure I hooted, followed by a healthy dose of har-hars. Hope that’s helpful.
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July 31, 2016 at 10:14 am
It is definitely helpful. I guess I am just having trouble reconciling my outward laugh (something between a snort and a guffaw) and my inward (somewhat sinister) snicker giving way to a bah hah hah inward laugh.
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July 31, 2016 at 10:42 am
My therapist used to tell me that labels are for other people. Perhaps your laugh doesn’t need a name. Maybe it could be better represented by a symbol like Prince during his squiggle phase. Something like exclamation points followed by eclipses and a bat.
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July 31, 2016 at 6:10 pm
A certain gal in college liked to tip Coke machines until one day she got caught under one. Luckily, there is no obituary because her strong super friend Albie came to the rescue and lifted it right off her. No injuries reported. However, if you ever look at a soda machine and see the symbols
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July 31, 2016 at 6:11 pm
…warning of death from machine crushing….uh…it happens.
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July 31, 2016 at 7:22 pm
Beloved is the reason we can’t run with scissors.
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July 31, 2016 at 7:36 pm
She really ran with scissors? Say it isn’t so. I have never been allowed to run with scissors.
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July 31, 2016 at 8:34 pm
She did, and they ended up sticking out of her 6-year-old head.
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July 31, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Ruined it for everyone.
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July 31, 2016 at 7:22 pm
That’s funny, though I bet it wasn’t at the time.
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July 31, 2016 at 7:39 pm
Deb thought it was pretty hilarious and laughed the entire time it was happening I was told….while the poor gal was under the Coke machine. Albie needed about 2 seconds to process and then he laughed as well….22 yrs later it is still Deb’s favorite story to tell to during uncomfortable silences.
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July 31, 2016 at 8:35 pm
Atta girl!
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August 3, 2016 at 11:52 pm
Contact Yoga, LOL! Guffaw and laughing until tears ran down my face.
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August 3, 2016 at 11:54 pm
I am a fan of dark humor. While my husband subscribes to Rolling Stone and The Atlantica, I am convinced that we should renew our subscribtion to New Yorker and they should send you a commission.
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August 4, 2016 at 12:15 am
Ha! If that’s true, then you should be getting royalty checks from all the music I’ve discovered on your wall and purchased since I’ve known you!
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August 4, 2016 at 12:14 am
It really was a challenge to read them aloud since I kept having to stop to crack up!
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