The children shall inherit the earth

It's a sad state of affairs that I didn't learn that littering was wrong until I was 18 when I received a ticket for throwing a tissue covered in snot out of my car window. It was actually a gauze pad. I didn't have any tissues and some how had gauze and medical tape handy. It relates to a girl I was dating but that is another story.

As a child I had the "I learned it by watching you motto" and with that I actually thought littering was totally normal. For example, Sybil would take us to McDonald's. We would eat in the car and then when finished, roll down the windows of the corolla and just toss the styrofoam and cups and remnants of fries onto route 17.

This was just how we did things. Sybil used to love to tell the story of how when Lewis was a baby she changed him in the car and threw his shit filled diaper onto the windshield of a parked car as she drove away.

So many Indians shed a tear as Sybil drove around discarding whatever she felt like into oncoming traffic. The funny thing is you would think Sybil would have had a clean car considering, but actually there was just as much trash on the floor as there was thrown out the window.

I need to ask her what her system was for what stayed and what went.

Sorry for the extra typos. This post was done on my phone.

Officer Sybil reporting for duty

When I was in first grade, elementary school was a scary place. I have vivid memories of the sixth graders smoking cigarettes, porking on the tire playground and there might have been a kid who drove a Trans-Am. These kids scared the shit out of me as well as my brother. Mostly because they looked like extras from Escape From New York. I was smart enough to stay away from these delinquents. My brother not so much. There was one day in particular when the sixth graders were pistol whipping some smaller kid and Lewis decided to intervene.  He begged this one kid Peter to stop. Peter wanted to know what Lewis would do for him. Lewis offered to bribe him, but this is the kicker, he had no money on him. He suggested Peter come to our house after school and ask my mother for the money. Now either Lewis is a genius or this kid is a retard because he agreed. Now under the best circumstances, a kid going to a house and requesting money so he doesn't beat someone up is never going to go well, but on top of that you throw Sybil in the mix and you have a recipe for disaster.

So Peter showed up to the house, but Sybil wasn't home so the house keeper relayed the story to her. In disbelief Sybil asked Lewis for full details and for Peter's address. This is where I come in. Sybil grabbed me and brought me along for the ride to teach Peter a lesson. Sybil banged on his door with me standing next to her. Peter's mom came to the door and out of nowhere Sybil pulled out a NYC Truancy Badge and announced that she was a Truancy Officer and was there because Peter tried to extort money from Lewis. Peter's mom was disgusted with the situation and told Sybil she could beat her son if she wanted. Sybil declined shockingly, but requested Peter leave Lewis alone from that point on.

I know this is a long winded story but the key take away is my mother carried a Truancy Badge. I to this day have no idea where she got it or how many times she pulled it out. For that matter she may still carry it.

Editor's Note - I was just reminded that when Sybil went to Peter's door, she asked him how old he was and his response was old enough.  The kid was maybe 12.  Such huge balls.

The Fence

My feelings for dogs have certainly evolved over the years. At first I was deathly afraid, then indifferent, and finally a dog loving retard that has to stop and pet everything. My initial fear was instilled in me by my mom of course. Sybil has an irrational fear of dogs. She is convinced they all have been trained to bite her. I would like to say she grew up in a concentration camp where the guards taunted her with german shepherds, but really according to legend she had a dog as a child. I don't know the source of Sybil's trauma, but I do know that when she moved to the suburbs of New Jersey and saw that a neighbor had a Irish Setter her fear went into overdrive and she decided she needed to turn her new house into a fortress.

This post really isn't about dogs. There is plenty of time for me to discuss how I've tortured my mom with my dog on a retractable leash, or the time she locked the car door thinking it being closed wasn't enough to keep a friend's dog from getting to her or how she refers to all dogs as "Her." This post is about the fence she built around her house. I'm not sure I can describe this accurately, but you know how a wood fence has a front side and a back side?

When most normal people put up a fence, they put the finished side out so that people not in the house see the nicer side. It seems like the logical choice. Sybil on the other hand felt if she was paying for a fence and going to be in the yard, she should have the privilege of seeing the nice side. So our entire fence was built with the nice side facing in. When you approached our home it just looked bizarre, not to mention with the back side facing out it made it very easy for less desirables to just climb the fence and come in the yard. Not great when I was being a wise ass and tried to run away from a neighborhood bully. Even the Irish Setter laughed at the fence.

Over time Sybil refused to pay anyone to weather treat the wood so let's just say the fence had a very Grey Gardens look to it. There were entire sections that just fell down. The city eventually made her remove it because it became an eye sore. Thankfully it was after the Irish Setter had gone to dog heaven.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the men and women who died while serving in the country's armed forces. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, the readers of this site, to take a moment to honor and remember my mother's first husband. He proudly served in the Navy and was killed in combat. By combat, I mean he died of a heart attack at 35 while arguing with Sybil. Somehow his service in the armed forces helped Sybil secure USAA insurance thirty years after his death and two months after she lost Prudential for insurance fraud.

His contribution will not be forgotten.

God Bless America.

Reason to have a Will

Since my grandmother lived with us and wasn't born in America I guess it's no surprise she didn't have a last will and testament. All she had was a bunch of really nice jewelry that either came from my grandfather lavishing her with gifts or according to my father, my grandparents were neighborhood loan sharks who amassed a collection of jewelry as collateral over the years. Either story sounds very romantic.

My mother took care of my grandmother in her declining years and made the executive decision that all of the jewelry was now hers. It would have been a fine theory if my mother didn't have siblings. Specifically a sister who felt she was entitled to some of the baubles. The two of them fought for years over the collection. Finally my mother appeased my aunt by giving her some of the less desirable stuff that claimed to not care about.

Flash forward ten years to when not only is my grandmother dead but so is my aunt. While mourning the loss (telling police I drive too fast as a coping mechanism), my mother asked me the following:

"Do you think it would be wrong to ask my sister's kids for my mother's jewelry back?

I responded with, "I bet that will go over well."

Shockingly she didn't do it.  I bet she regrets it though.

Just like Wolverine

Last night I had a dream I was at Sybil's with a friend. We were sitting in my room when Sybil started to scream what do we want for dinner. I answered "nothing" like five times, but she kept asking anyway. Next thing you know I'm running down the stairs to choke her.  I woke up sitting up in bed with my arms out in front of as if I was choking the air. I would say I'm batshit crazy, but I have two lines of defense for my rage:

1. Tone - It was the way she kept asking what we wanted for dinner that was annoying.

2. Yesterday I saw X-Men Days of Future Past and without going into a bunch of nerd talk I will just mention there is a scene where Wolverine is in a trance while Ellen Page is all up in his brain and he just starts violently slashing the air.

Long story short, Ellen Page is fifty percent responsible for my bad dream.

Happy Birthday Dad

Since today is my father's birthday, I was thinking of switching focus and writing a post about him.  I could do one about the time back in high school he got really high and had me drive him to the bagel store only to yell at me the whole time to slow down because the THC made everything appear to be moving lightening fast, but since this is a Sybil specific blog, I will instead write about the time he died and Sybil requested ten death certificates.

Roughly eight years ago my father took the easy way out by having a massive stroke in the shower down in Florida. When I called Sybil to tell her the news and that she might want to hop on a plane to come down to say her goodbyes, all she said was, "The important thing now is for him to get better." I liked her optimism and her refusal to come visit. It warmed the heart. So after her "get well soon" dance didn't work, good old dad died. I was making the funeral arrangements when the funeral director told me that he would soon have copies of the death certificate and that it's customary to print a few out for filing various papers. I got a couple, but I gave Sybil a call to ask if she wanted a copy. She requested I get her ten copies.

Now either she was framing them and giving them out as gifts or she had insurance policies all over town that she needed to hand in death certificates to redeem. To this day I have no idea why she needed so many. All I know is, she has no copies left but she did buy me a new Mac right after the funeral. I wonder if Apple's death discount is better than their student one.

Valet Parking at Season's

There is this restaurant in Washington Township called Season's. Growing up it provided me with some great memories. There was the time my dad was robbed at gun point in our driveway and the get away car was abandoned there. There was the time I burned my mom on purpose by slowly pushing a hot pot of coffee across the table until the side touched her arm and she smacked the shit out of me in front of everyone in the restaurant. There was the time my friend Rebecca got married there. I've never had better steak or was it fish?

With so many great memories it's hard to pick out my favorite, but if a gun was put to my head like it was my dad's, I would say it was the way my mom handled the Valet. Sybil would pull in the lot, speed passed the sixteen year old in the red vest and park the car herself. The poor Valet would just stand there astonished and happy that Sybil didn't take off his foot when she swerved into a spot. It was also fun when the meal was over and we would go collect our car.  The Valet would come over for our ticket as we walked out and remember who Sybil was and just cower away. The $2.50 service charge she saved ensured that I got my own desert so who am I to complain.

The greatest teacher of all time

When Sybil began her teaching career she really cared.  She put the time in to get a Masters in Biology and she really wanted to make a difference. Maybe it was all those white faces staring back at her, but she just couldn't let the kids down.  She explained everything in detail and made sure everyone understood.

Fast forward twenty years and the joys of the job start to wear off for everyone. The average age of a seventh grader was suddenly 16. No one was listening to her lectures anymore and Sybil's interest began to wane. I think it was 1987 when Sybil gave her class the now infamous mid-term. After the last student handed in his test, Sybil was left alone in her classroom to grade this horrid test. She had a choice.  Does she spend the next two hours painstakingly going through the exams or does she toss them in the trash and just write grades indiscriminately in her grade book so she can leave early?  I'm pretty sure you know what her choice was.

Sadly, someone found the tests in the trash and reported Sybil.  She was brought up on disciplinary charges, but eventually let off because of a lack of evidence.

I commend her no child left behind attitude.

Speeding Away from Cancer

When my mother asked me to drive her to my cousin's for some stupid party you can understand why I immediately said no. She pulled the "I don't drive at night card", so of course guilt got the better of me. Off we went to the suburbs of Philadelphia for a few hours of torture. Being that I was twenty years old and needed the day to end as quickly as possible, I decided to drive Sybil's burgundy Honda as fast as possible down the NJ turnpike. The harder I pressed the gas pedal the more the engine screamed which also helped to drown out Sybil telling me cousins weren't nice. When I hit about 105,  I caught the attention of a NJ State Trooper. Sitting on the side of the road I waited for the trooper to walk over. This was clearly all Sybil's fault. Before the cop could get a word out Sybil screamed the following in a hysterical voice:

"My sister died of cancer six months ago.  I haven't gotten over the loss."

The trooper just looked at her and asked me for my license and registration.

That ticket was like three hundred bucks!

Ma'am, please use the tongs

King's Supermarket circa 1985 - Hillsdale's answer to Whole Foods.

The new fruit salad bar just opens for the first time. Strawberries, Blueberries, Watermelon, Pineapple, Papaya, as far as the eye can see.

Sybil cuts the line and reaches in with her mitt and grabs some pineapple. She shoves piece after piece into her mouth.  

Out of nowhere the produce man screams, "Ma'am please use the tongs!" 

How rude.  He just lost a sale and three pieces of pineapple. 

No tip

I used to get my haircut at this little salon in Hillsdale called Rendition. It was in the town's flood zone and the owner also worked at UPS, so obviously it was upscale. The owner, Joe, used to cut my hair. Nothing fancy, mow the Jew sides down and trim the top a bit. The biggest problem I had with the haircut was my mom would only give me enough money for the actual cut and nothing to tip Joe.  When I questioned this, she said Joe owns the place so he gets all the money, there is no need for a tip. I don't know, it just seemed wrong to me. With every lopsided haircut I got I bet it seemed wrong to Joe too.

Pretty sure that's assault

When my brother and I were being brats my mom would tell us the story about my cousin being "fresh" to my aunt in front of her. My mother was an innocent bystander as a mother and teenage daughter argued about nonsense. Feeling my cousin went over the line with what she was saying, Sybil opened a safety pin and stabbed her with it. There were some tears and suddenly the mom and daughter were hugging, the fight a distant memory. Of course now the focus of the room was what to do with the lunatic with the safety pin. I think Sybil liked to tell us the story as a warning that she wasn't going to take crap from us. Nothing like having the threat of your mom stabbing you to make you fall in line.

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My grandmother's Ad in the back of Screw magazine

In 1985 my maternal grandmother passed away. It was a sad time for all of us. I lost a grandmother, my mother lost a person to fight with in broken Yiddish. Then again, there now was a vacant bedroom in the house. More on that later. About a month after my grandmother was laid to rest, the house phone rang and the call went something like this:

Caller: Is Katie there?
Sybil: She passed away. Can I ask who's calling?
Caller: That's too bad. From her ad it sounded like she liked to fuck.
Click!

So that was a bit odd.  Did someone see my grandmother's obituary and think it would be funny to make a prank call? My mother slammed the phone down and screamed about the animal on the other end.  I sat there clueless. Then it happened again.

Caller: Is this Katie?
Sybil: Heh?
Caller: So how are we going to do this?  Meet at the Coach House Diner?  I have an 11 inch dick.
Sybil: How dare you.  My mother is dead!
Click!

Then it happened again. And again. And again. Finally my mother was able to put her hysteria away long enough to ask a caller where they got her mother's information. Apparently there was an Ad in a Screw magazine detailing how a woman named Katie that liked to fuck, could be reached at our home phone number.

My mother called Screw and tried to get the info on who placed the Ad. They wouldn't give it up, but we did get a free subscription for our trouble.

Picture on file

As I've mentioned before, my mother had a colorful past returning items: clothes, soda, a week old pork chop that was cooked. She was a legend at the Garden State Plaza. Babbage's actually changed their return policy because of her. There will be a post dedicated to them shortly. I will give a teaser, it involves my mother returning a video game that my brother put down his pants.

This post is about how Nordstrom security used to follow my mom around when she came in the store. Sybil abused their return policy so badly that they kept an eye on her when she was browsing. She was returning more than she was buying, so something didn't add up. I have a feeling she was buying items at cheaper stores and returning them to Nordstrom for the profit. I can't prove it though.

I got the scoop from my friend (NAME REMOVED). Her mom, worked in the Nordstrom shoe department. I guess there was a team meeting about Sybil. (NAME REMOVED) told me as a warning.  "Dude, your mom is going to go to jail if she keeps it up." Now you probably think I was embarrassed when (NAME REMOVED) tried to scare Sybil straight through me. I wasn't.  It could be that (NAME REMOVED) had once told me her father was arrested in Shop Rite for shop lifting groceries. Somehow I felt my family was classier than hers.


Side Note - My father was arrested not far from Shop Rite.  Much more upscale crime than shop lifting though, so I still think we come out on top.

Air Conditioning the Street

When I was little, my mother forced her in-laws to buy central air conditioning for our house. She claimed it was the least they could do. During the installation process, for some reason the bathrooms were over looked.  If I had to guess, I would think the contractors figured the bathrooms were small and if you leave the doors open when not in use, the rooms will always be cooled. Sybil saw the lack of vents as a sign that the bathrooms were not meant to have the precious cool air and insisted that the bathroom doors be closed at all times.  She literally felt that by leaving a door inside the house open we were wasting the air meant for that room. Sybil would normally scream, "I'm not air conditioning the street.," if she caught me leaving my bathroom door open.

Picture summer in New Jersey, mid afternoon,  and I have to take a shit but the bathroom is 95 degrees. By the time I was done, I would be so covered in sweat that when I walked back into the cool part of the house I would get chills.

To this day she lives like every room is part of a vacuum lock on a space ship.

Making money off your children

When I was younger, I was a bit of a retard behind the wheel, speeding tickets, an accident with an ambulance, an accident with a fat person, more speeding tickets. There was even a time I was pulled over twice in ten minutes, different cops, same crime. With such a stellar driving record it makes perfect sense that I wasn't able to get insurance in my own name. Being that I really wanted a new Jetta (mistake one), I decided to ask Sybil if I could add my car to her insurance policy (mistake two).

Sure, no problem, $2,000 a year sounds fair. I said okay and started paying my mom monthly to keep my car on the road. After about a year I had to call the insurance company to ask for a duplicate card when I decided in passing to ask the company how much my yearly premium was. The number they gave me was $800. Wait this makes no sense. They are saying $800, but I'm paying my mom $2,000.  Could she have made a mistake? There is no way my mom could be making a profit on me is there?

When confronted, Sybil first denied it but then in a fit of rage responded by saying she was taking all the risk so why shouldn't she make a little something. I would like to say Sybil saved the $1200 a year in a special account for me to teach me a lesson about savings and responsibility. I would like to say that, but I can't.

Side Note: I got pulled over in the Jetta leaving the dealership.

The three liter bottle of soda

The three liter bottle of soda, not since New Coke has the soda industry made such a huge mistake. Sure it showed a lot of promise. Who doesn't want 50% more soda. The problem is the soda companies didn't do market testing with my mother. You see Sybil saw the flaw right away and exploited it as best she could. If you didn't drink the bottle in one day, you were typically left with one to two liters of flat soda. I for one am not an animal so there was no way I was going to drink flat Coke. Sybil realizing how wasteful this was had to think of something. That something was to return the flat soda.  She would keep an empty bottle on the counter and whenever a bottle went flat she would dump it into the empty bottle.  When it was full, she would march into the supermarket and complain that the three liter bottle clearly had a design flaw and she kept getting flat bottles. Her store credits were of course used to buy more three liter bottles of soda.  

I think the supermarket finally caught on when Sybil put a bit too much Sprite in with the Coke. The 16 year old working customer service just wasn't buying the soda came diarrhea color.  

Coke and Pepsi both agreed the three liter bottle was a marketing failure. To this day I wonder if it was because of all the returns in the north east.

The time Sybil was shot

Many people don't know that Sybil was a 7th grade biology teacher in the Bronx for 33 years. She had a very storied career. There was the time a kid jerked off into his desk while Sybil lectured about circulatory system and the time I came to school as a 5 year old and in the middle of my mom's lesson wrote "black boys" on the chalk board. For now we can focus on the time my mother was shot walking into work.  

Sybil pulled up in front of P.S. 142, hopped out of her Corolla in a chipper mood, ready to educate tomorrow's doctors, lawyers, and car thieves when all of a sudden she felt an insane pain in her left arm.  Convinced that the high cholesterol her children gave her finally made her heart explode, she fell against her car. That's when Sybil noticed an enormous barbed dart stuck in her arm. She stumbled into the building screaming she'd been shot. The school nurse yanked the dart out and told Sybil to go get a tetanus shot.  Apparently one of her students was on the roof of the building with a blow gun.  He saw Sybil get out of her car and decided he couldn't pass up the opportunity.  Good for him.  

Sybil took the rest of the day off.  

The three dollar polo shirt

I have to give credit where credit is due. Growing up, my brother and I had really nice clothes. Lots and lots of Polo and izod (pre lacoste crap). My mother had no problem buying us tons of really nice things, and here's why. Sybil invented her own exchange policy for clothes to make them last forever.  I get my new rugby caught on a tire swing ripping the back to shreds, no problem. Sybil will just bring it back and say it came that way. Lewis drops a meatball on his khakis, again, not a problem. Sybil will just march right into Macy's and say the pants came that way and she didn't notice at the time of purchase. If you did the math on how many times she would return the same item of clothing for a new version or in some cases the next size (we were growing), the average price she paid for a polo shirt was at best three dollars.

Thanks to my mom, I'm still wearing this shirt.

Editor's note:

As good as Sybil was at returning things, she did once fail. When my brother was maybe nineteen ten, my mother bought him a yellow polo bathing suit with a blue horse on it. I'm not sure if a string became loose or what, but my brother in an OCD rant insisted Sybil go return it for a new one. This suit came from Bloomingdales back when fancier people than you shopped there. The sales staff was not prepared for my mother's antics. Sybil marched into the plus size children's section and insisted the store clerk give her a new suit because this one was defective.  I remember the exchange like it was yesterday:

Sybil: Look at this suit.  It is falling apart and my son hasn't even worn it yet.

Store Clerk: Ma'am it looks like the suit has been worn and washed multiple times.

Sybil: I don't know what you are talking about.  This is exactly how it came. Are you calling me a liar?  

Store Clerk: You don't have any tags or a receipt. Let me get my manager.

Sybil: Yes, I think you should.  

The sales clerk disappeared for a second and returned with an impeccably dressed black man (no relevance to the story). The black manager picked up the suit and examined it.  His eye immediately brought to a shit stain in the mesh liner.  He looks at it.  He looks at Sybil.  She looks at it. She accepts defeat.

I think I eventually got the suit as a hand me down.  

Furniture Money

Growing up I shared a prison cell bedroom with my brother. My therapist says it's best that I try to suppress those memories, so for now we can just discuss the actual room: two dressers from my dad's childhood, a dresser from my mom's house in the Bronx, a couple of desks from a dumpster/Caldor, and the finest blue shag carpeting money could buy. My brother's bed was missing a leg so we used books to hold it up. My bed had a spring sticking out of it that would stab me nightly.  Let's not forget my mother's collection of fur coats hanging in the closet in case I wanted to question my sexuality.  With such a lovely menagerie of items it makes perfect sense that my mother would bitch nonstop to her mother in law about how she needed to buy us new furniture.  At first Sybil mentioned it at a family meal, then it was every five minutes while on vacation at my grandmother's place in Florida. Finally, it was every single time my grandmother called the house.  My grandmother couldn't take it anymore so she mailed Sybil a check for $500 with a note saying I hope you buy the boys something nice.  A month after getting the check my grandmother called and asked Sybil what she bought with the money.  Sybil's response, "You can't buy anything with five hundred dollars."

She kept the money and I got a tetanus shot.

Happy Mother's Day!

Your gift is shit!

I don't steal for a living!

When I was little and I wanted a new toy or a replacement for a toy I just set on fire, I would just go to my mom and start nagging. My method was to whine in a horrible tone until Sybil gave in and bought me the piece of crap I had to have. Part of the process consisted of Sybil going insane and screaming at the top of her lungs about how "She didn't steal for a living."

I think I was 13 when I responded with "Well based on a lot of stuff I've observed, I would say you kinda do."

No new Cobra Commander that day.

Lifetime subscription to Time magazine

I can remember a time when the daily mail always contained a plethora of different magazines: Time, People, National Geographic, even Playboy. The funny thing about these magazines were the address labels all contained names of dead relatives of mine. My recently deceased aunt, my mother's first husband, hell I think there were a couple of magazines coming in names of people my mother just wished were dead.  Back then magazine companies would send at least three to four issues before demanding payment. At that point my mother would just pick a new name so that she wouldn't miss an issue.

The life lesson here:

When I was in high school I really wanted some CDs from Columbia House.  Alas, I didn't have any cash, so I figured ordering them in our Jamaican house keeper's name was totally fine.  I got the Doors greatest hits and an R.E.M CD before the collection notices started.

To my son I bequeath enough money to get divorced

In roughly 1976 my paternal grandfather succumbed to lung cancer.  It was a sad time for my father's family as grandpa Irving was genuinely liked by friends and family alike.  Being that my grandmother was from a generation where the women stayed home to take care of the families and the men went off to work, it could be assumed that any money my grandfather had would of course be left to provide for my grandmother.  My father assumed it.  My aunt assumed it.  My mother not so much.  After my grandfather was laid to rest and the whole family was back at my grandparent's house, my mother with bagel and whitefish in hand, looked around the room and loudly said the following:

"SO, WHEN IS THE READING OF THE WILL?"

Sybil was escorted out of the house.

For the next twenty years, Sybil reminded us daily how my grandmother was rich because she didn't go to work after my grandfather died.  It was 1976 and my grandmother was in her late sixties.  I'm sure she could have gotten a job anywhere.  She just must have been lazy.

Now with audio!

Shiksas - Destroying Judaism, one weak Jew at a time

When I was a little boy there was a girl in my class named Heather Fishbein. She was a typical little Jewish girl with one massive flaw according to my mother. Heather's mom was goyim!! She was Catholic or Christian, maybe Hindu. I don't know, and to this day I don't care. For some reason the fact that Heather's dad (a complete stranger to Sybil) married a woman who believed in Jesus killed her.  Every time my mother would bump into Heather's mother at the super market or God forbid, picking me up from Hebrew school there would be rage for hours.

"That Heather Fishbein's father married a big shiksa! She isn't even pretty with her blonde hair and nonsecular features!"
"I bet he treats her nice because she isn't Jewish."
"Did you see her new car?  Where does she get the nerve?"
"If I wasn't Jewish I bet your father would show me some respect!"

At about this point in the ranting,  Sybil would look at me and suddenly tear into me about how I will probably do the same thing.  I will marry a big shiksa and treat her much better than I treat my mother.

Not to sound racist, but have you ever seen one of those black movies where there are a bunch of pissed off black women because they see a black man with a blonde girl?  My mother would have made an amazing black woman.

Is that long distance?!

Up until around 2005, Sybil knew nothing of cell phones.  She was totally oblivious to the fact that people could make unlimited long distance phone calls for one low monthly rate.  To her, long distance was something you only used in an emergency or if someone else was paying.  Back in her day, she would pick up some old timey phone, spin a knob and ask the operator to connect her to extension 452.  This would then cost roughly $84 for three minutes of talking.  With prices sky high it only made sense that Sybil needed to devise a plan to make phones calls as cheaply as possible.  Here are some of the best:

The Brokerage Firm - Sybil would dial operator and say that she was making a business to business call.  She would give the operator the number she was trying to reach, and the number to which the call should be billed.  The number she was billing belonged to a local stock brokerage firm that she once drove by.  Backed then, operators took you at your word.  This worked for a little while until the brokerage house audited their books.  They called my mother and told her if she continued they would prosecute.  

The Toyota Dealer  - Sybil would drive to the local Toyota dealership where she would request a test drive in a new Corolla.  After a quick spin around the block,  she would ask the salesman if she could use his desk phone to call her husband to see if he was okay with her completing the deal right there and then.  For the next half hour she would call every long distance number she knew.  Finally she would tell the salesman that she couldn't make such an important decision without her husband coming with her so she would be back. 

The Ring Back - If God forbid Sybil did have to make a long distance call she had a special method to save a few bucks.  After the call was over she would call the operator to complain there was a bad connection.  The operator would profusely apologize and then give my mother a credit for one minute of the call.  After hanging up, the operator would run a test on the phone number Sybil had dialed.  This meant a one ring call back with no one there.  I received these daily while I was in college.  After each one, I would call my mother back and scream at her to stop doing it.  She was only saving twenty five cents!!  She would then claim to not know what I was talking about.  

The make the person call back at a certain time - When I was home on break from college, I would occasionally get a call from friends in other parts of the country.  If for some reason I was not home to take the call and my mother answered the following would happen:

Friend: Hi, is Barry there?

Sybil: No. Can you call back at exactly 5:30 pm.  I will make sure he is here.

Friend: Ugh, I'm not sure.  How about you just have him call me when he is home.

Sybil: No, no.  This is much easier.  Just call at 5:30 pm.

Friend: Okay

Sybil: So how are you?  Do you know Barry from school?

Friend: Yeah I really need to go if Barry isn't there.  I will call later.

Knowing all of the above, there were still times I felt it necessary to make a long distance phone call from my house.  I would try to do it in the middle of the night behind a closed door. Sure enough as soon as I said hello, my mother would come screaming, "Is that long distance?!"  After about two minutes, Sybil would then scream, "It's been an hour.  I'm not made out of money!"  At this point I would give up since I couldn't hear the other person talking anyway.  

Hysteria at T.J. Maxx

During one of my summer breaks from college, I was shockingly blessed with having a girlfriend.  Being young, I wanted this girl around all the time.  Being stupid, I once had her come over to my house knowing I had to go to work.  This left the girl with two options: she could either get back in her car and curse my name as she drove an hour home, or she could take my mom up on her offer to go to T.J. Maxx.  Being the girl was young and stupid as well, I think you know what she chose.

The shopping trip was semi normal at first.  My mother running through the aisles, grabbing clothes at random and muttering how fancier people than her shop at discount stores.  Next thing you know, Sybil leads this poor helpless girl into the housewares department.  A glass bowl catches Sybil's eye.  She grabs it with the grace of an elephant stamping out a fire.  The bowl shatters in her hands.  Blood gushes everywhere.  Hysterics ensue.  Sybil crying, screaming for help, while her blood dumps on the floor.  The girlfriend frozen like a deer in headlights.  Out of nowhere Sybil sees a pair of shorts sitting on a shelf.  She picks them up and calmly says, "Don't these shorts look nice?" A second ago this woman was crying like a baby and now she is pointing out some denim shorts she might want to purchase.  Before the girlfriend could even respond, Sybil started crying again and wiped the blood on the shorts.  

Sybil managed to extort some money from T.J. Maxx for her trouble that day.   I never could find out how much.  My girlfriend never wanted to be alone with my mother again.  

The art of the deal

When I was twenty-five I finally had enough credit cards to buy my dream TV,  the Sony Wega.  It was like a regular TV only heavier and painted silver, which meant it was awesome.  I felt like such a bad ass being able to afford one in fifty payments or less.  Hell, I knew if I played my cards right I could go as big as 32 inches. It wasn't just a TV, it was a symbol of how stupid I would be with money for years to come.  I wanted that television so bad I was willing to do anything.  I just needed a good deal.  You can imagine where this is going.

Before we even got through the door at PC Richards, Sybil saw her mark.  He was an middle aged salesman with a bad haircut and a cane, pondering where his life went wrong.  Sybil screamed "sonny" in his direction and told me to go look at vacuums.  I'm my own man, so instead of hiding behind the uprights,  I hid behind the VCRs and listened to their exchange:

Salesman: Hi ma'am, how may I help you today?
Sybil: I want this TV. (points vaguely in the direction of the one I want).
Salesman: That's a fine choice.  Let me see if we have it in stock.
Sybil: I was just in Crazy Eddy's and they have it for two hundred dollars less. (Crazy Eddy's long out of business).
Salesman: Do you have it in writing?
Sybil: Look, that is the deal they offered me, if you aren't going to beat it, then I will just go there.
Salesman: Let me talk to my manager.
Sybil: Wrap this up. I don't have all day.  You don't want me to beat you with your cane do you?
Salesman: I.. I.. will be right back.

I left there with the TV and an extra two hundred in my pocket.

Who wants to know?

When I was a little boy my maternal grandmother lived with us.  An arrangement that I'm sure made for a great marriage between my parents.  Back in those days my grandmother just so happened to own a building in the South Bronx that at some point was an income generator for her family.  It was a piece of pride for my grandmother knowing she did well enough in life to not only own her own home but have enough to own other buildings.  According to Sybil, in the late '70s, times got tough when the schwartzas (it's not racist the way Sybil mispronounces it) moved in, and ruined everything.  At about this point my grandmother was in the later stages of dementia and my mother was making all the decisions related to the building.  No sooner than my mother took over the management was there an invent that involved a brick through her windshield on the 1st of the month.  Something about having the nerve to show up to collect rent but refusing to turn the heat on.  Now most people would say, let's cut our losses and sell the place.  We can't deal with the tenants or the maintenance and we are certainly too cheap to hire a management company.  But who is going to buy the building? There are black people inside.  Not an easy sell, even now.  I'm kidding.   A better idea according to Sybil was to just abandon the property.  Stop collecting rent, stop pretending to fix things, stop answering the phone.  This idea in theory was great until the city got wind of it and decided to sue my grandmother for being a slum lord.

Now's the part where I come in.  One day I'm in the front yard playing with some G.I.Joes, when a man walks on the property and asks if Katie Fox lives there.  Being a five year old and not alarmed by the stranger, I point to my grandmother sitting in the window staring off into space.  The man proceeds to hand me an envelope and walk away.  Later that afternoon my mother came home and I went running to give her the envelope.  I took pretty good care of it considering I was in the yard the whole time.  I informed her that a man asked if Katie Fox lived there, and I said yes.  I was all proud of my basic knowledge regarding my home and my ability not to lose the letter.  Sybil looked at the piece of paper, looked at me, looked at the piece of paper, looked at me, then stated to scream that she had been served a subpoena and it was all my fault.  Never mind she abandoned the building and the city was looking out for the tenants.  It was the five year old's fault for letting the process server know that my grandmother lived there.  How dare I tell the process server anything.  What business was it of mine??  Before the yelling was done I was blamed for the brick through the windshield, too.  If I didn't want so many toys she wouldn't have had to go there to collect the rent.  I didn't really know how to respond so I just backed out of the room and hid under my bed for a few hours.

I think my mother got the case dismissed by claiming my grandmother had Alzheimer's and she had no knowledge that her mother owned the building.  The city took ownership shortly after.

For years I was reminded of how my careless action caused them to get sued.  Foolish five year old, when will you learn?

Don't weigh the paper!

Growing up in a Jewish family in the suburbs of New Jersey, there were certain traditions we upheld to remind the neighbors we were different and not to be trusted.  One of which was to go every Sunday to the local bagel store to get some bagels and lox to fight over as a family.  Sure in this family my father would get super high before we left and then discuss how rich he would be if he owned a bagel store or a bakery.  Then there was my mom who was in charge of the actual buying of the bagels.  She would whip out a coupon from a competing store and insist that it be accepted by them even though it was expired on top of everything else.  All this was fine until the time came for her to buy a few measly slices of lox.  She would ask the girl behind the counter (coincidentally who was in my class) for a quarter pound.  This was just enough for either one family member to have an enjoyable bagel or enough for every bagel to smell like fish but taste like crappy temptee cream cheese.  When we would call Sybil on her cheapness she would go on some tirade about how if she bought more we wouldn't eat it and it was seventy five dollars an ounce.  She insisted on lying about the price for absolutely no reason.

Back to the story at hand,  when Sybil would ask for the slices of lox,  the girl behind the counter would throw a piece of wax paper on the scale and begin to put each slice on top of it.  This is when Sybil would go insane.  She would scream at the girl that she was getting ripped off and was being charged for the weight of the wax paper.  When the poor girl would explain that the scale was set to below zero so that when the wax paper was put on it would zero out, my mother would look at her like she was being mugged at knife point.  Sybil would yell at the top of her lunges that she was being robbed. I even think she told the girl that weighing the paper was anti-Semitic. To rectify the situation Sybil insisted the wax paper be removed and that the sliced fish be put directly on the filthy scale.  As with most people,  the girl wouldn't know what to do so she just abided.  Meanwhile I would be turning a shade of red that glowed in the dark.  After my mother paid with pennies and coupons to the local gas station,  the girl behind the counter would throw me side glance and say see you in Math class tomorrow.

Vacationing on zero dollars a day

I could probably write a book about how my mother has complained her way to free nights in hotels by using everything from her room being too close to the elevator to their being a toothpick in her turkey club, but for now we can focus on how her gall bladder got her a free week in the Hyatt in La Jolla.

When I was sixteen, my brother and father were smart enough to opt out of family vacations.  I on the other hand was slow on the take.  When my mother suggested we visit California,  I figured how bad could it be.  One Sunday brunch and two emergency room visits later I realized I needed to reevaluate my definition of bad.

It all started with a nice Sunday brunch at the hotel we were staying at.  Sybil had a very old world mentality toward buffets.  You eat as much and as varied as possible so that you absolutely get your money's worth.  If the restaurant isn't ready to go out of business by the time you are done than you are doing something wrong.  This means, you start by having a plate of fifty shrimp, followed by a bagel with enough cream cheese to choke a horse, followed by a thin slice of prime rib, followed by an omelet, followed by a dessert sampler,  followed by sushi (she ate it because she didn't know what it was). You get the idea.  After a good two hours of this, Sybil paid the bill.  You don't tip at a buffet right?  Needless to say after taking in the sites of San Diego, good old Sybil started to complain that her side hurt.  I ignored her until 3 am, when she started to scream that I should call an ambulance.  I said, "Are you sure? I'm on vacation." She insisted so I dialed 9-911 and requested an ambulance come to our hotel to take my mother to a better place.  Ten minutes later the paramedics showed up and threw Sybil on a stretcher and took her away.  I had the option of going with her but figured it made more sense for me to go back to sleep.  This is before the days of cell phones so really in my mind I was finally free.  I had some visions of turning into Eloise of the Hyatt.  No such luck, my mother returned to the hotel by noon the next day.  Apparently her gall bladder much like her cholesterol was destroyed by her terrible children.  If I had gone with her to the hospital she probably would have been fine.  At this point, Sybil went to the front desk and complained to the manager on duty that the brunch was poisoned and caused her internal organs to fail.  The only way to rectify the situation would be to give her her money back for the brunch and the previous night's stay since technically she stayed in the hospital and not the room.  The manager slightly confused figured it made more sense to just give the money back then to argue with the woman who was still wearing her hospital gown.  I sat in the corner of the lobby looking at my shoes wondering what my brother and father were doing at that exact moment.

After Sybil, got her discount on the room her mood drastically improved so it only made sense that we go out to a local deli for dinner.  Long story short, the ambulance came at around 2 am this time.  I welcomed the EMTs like old friends and watched as once again they took my mother away.

The next day when she returned she went straight to the front desk and told the hotel it was a travesty that she had to pay anything considering how horrible her vacation was.  She insisted on a full refund for the week including meals.  Not knowing how to respond, they actually gave in to her demands.

We left the next day but not before Sybil emptied the mini bar into her purse and stuck six towels into her suit case.

Sadly this was not the last vacation I took with my mother alone.

She had her gall bladder removed the week after we got home.

Children cause high cholesterol

Back in the '80's my mother's cholesterol was rising faster than the DOW Industrial Average (not 1987).  When Sybil finally got a blood test I think she was pushing about 425.  A normal person would put down the cup of butter they carry everywhere and take a long hard look at their lifestyle and figure out what needs to change.  Well that would be a normal person.  Instead my mother decided to blame me and my brother for her lack of self control and bad genetics.  It was because we were so bad that the stress drove the numbers through the roof.  Never mind she hadn't exercised since Truman was in office.  Never mind that she was from a generation that thought noodle kugel was fortified with vitamins.  It was all because I was a brat that she was close to stroking out.  For every time I didn't listen a few extra points were added to her LDL.  Sure Lipitor brought her numbers down to a respectable range but if she didn't have such horrible children she wouldn't have needed the medicine in the first place.  I've had to carry this guilt a long time.  I wish I was a better child.

Her love of lobster played no part in her heart disease.  That does bring up another post I need to write, "If someone else is paying for dinner, order the lobster."

More to come.

Sybil Begins

The other night I had a dream that my mother, Sybil, asked me to help her clean out her house so she could move closer to me in California.  I somehow agreed which clearly meant I either had a massive stroke or was having a nightmare.  My dead father being there slightly less dead might have been a tip off too.  As I rummaged through the hoards of free gifts from Citizen's First National bank, wondering how I won the genetic lottery, a dumpster was delivered so I could properly dispose of Sybil's "treasures."  Being that even in my dreams nothing goes easily, the dumpster was put on my neighbor's lawn instead of ours.   When I told the toothless truck driver there was a mistake, I was informed that maybe if my mother didn't pay with a post dated check, they would be inclined to move it.  At this point my rage was so bad that my screaming at my mother for being a cheap fuck woke me in real life.  As I lay in my bed in a pool of sweat and urine I realized it was time for others to get some enjoyment out of my misery.  Sure she isn't dead and it's in horrible taste, but what can you do.  Over the next few months or years I plan to paint a picture that most likely will make you appreciate your own mother in ways you didn't think were possible.  Topics will include but are not limited to:

• Long distance phone calls
• Never paying for a meal
• Everyone has more than me
• Dating a goy
• How to mispronounce Yiddish words
• My marriage failed because of my sister in law.
• Being afraid of animals
• The proper way to buy an engagement ring
• Everyone is an anti-semite
• Making money off your children
• Being jealous of your children
• Insurance Fraud
• Fighting with siblings
• It's everyone else's fault
• My children are mean to me
• Superstition
• You wished me dead
• I passed out and someone stole ten dollars from my purse
• How to absolve yourself of student loans
• Lying about simple things
• Lying about big things
• Fighting with everyone
• Mispronouncing words

Let the fun begin! 

Sybil on her wedding day (second marriage)