Flip washed the dishes and the kitchen floor. Now he is reclining in his boxers with a beer and sighing like Atlas with the whole world on his shoulders.
(Here's what I did today: laundry, took cat to vet and learned to give subcutaneous injections with new drug paraphernalia, grocery shopped, worked in garden, rode bicycle (clothed,) cooked dinner, counseled friend with relationship problems, vacuumed, scoured bathroom, changed cat litter, read book.)
I said, "You're acting like an old Jewish lady in the Bronx, sitting at her window by a geranium plant, fanning herself with her hand and saying, 'Oy, have I got troubles.' I'm supposed to be the old Jewish lady around here."
"But I'm so good at it."
"They could all learn from you."
It's hard to understand how a WASP of the male persuasion manages to outdo a thousand centuries of Jewish persecution. He could make the Red Sea part with a few well-placed whines.
"You're stealing my culture," I told him. "Your culture is stiff upper lipdom and martinis. Tennis sweaters. Wonder bread with mayonnaise. Didn't you understand that?"
"I'll try to do better," he said.
