The Whitney Houston Suite

During this glorious visit, Sybil decided to stay at the Beverly Hilton.  It is just far enough away to be a complete pain in the ass to see her.  With no regard for the fact I have to drive back and forth she has regaled me with tales of how the trip is costing her $6,000 and as soon as she gets home she is calling corporate because her room is shit.  Her words, not mine.

Being the invalid that she is, she needed a handicap room.  I let her know months in advance that she should put a request in for one. Her response was I should mind my business and she took care of it.  When Sybil checked in, the first thing I noticed was her room had a tub shower. Unless the room had a hidden crane in the closet, there was no way she was getting in that tub to wash herself.  At best she might be able to wash her hoof by dipping it in the toilet. When I asked her about the room, she told me she complained to the front desk, but they told her there were other people in the hotel that needed the handicap rooms more than her. Again her words not mine.

After further probing I discovered management offered Sybil another room, but she refused it because she claimed it was too much trouble. Translation, if she takes the other room she can't go home and protest the charges on her credit card based on elder abuse.

Sybil also told me that she was faint so the hotel sent a sandwich to her room.  When she checked her bill (does it daily) she saw they billed her for said sandwich.  She complained until they removed the charge. The sandwich was also shit (again her words) and she didn't finish it (left a piece of crust) so why should she pay for it. Why indeed.

Even the finest graduates of Cornell's School of Hotel Administration are not prepared for this.

There's been an awakening

In years to come, most people will remember December 18th, 2015 as the day the new Star Wars movie came out. I will remember it as the day Sybil came for two weeks. My own personal intergalactic battle with good and evil. No CGI required.  This nightmare was done with all practical effects. J.J. Abrams would be proud.

I've seen The Force Awakens and most of the dialogue matches up perfectly to her trip. See for yourself. Major spoilers ahead:

There are stories about what happened.
It's true. All of it.

Escape now; hug later.

Show me again the power of the darkness, and I'll let nothing stand in our way.

I was raised to do one thing... but I've got nothing to fight for.

Okay, stay calm... stay calm... 

I am calm.
I was talking to myself.

He almost killed me 6 times!

You're a monster.

NOOOO!

I need help with this big hairy thing!

Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.

I'm being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?

Look how old you've become.

I'll show you the Dark Side.

I have a whole collection of posts related to her visit that will trickle out in the next few days. Sorry for the delay, but it is hard to type when you are in the fetal position.

Text M for Murder

First and foremost I must apologize as I am unable to write as fast as Sybil talks so I do lose things here and there. I really need the recording device Nixon had or a stenographer.

The following is how I remember the conversations I had this afternoon:

Barry: What's up?
Sybil: What's up? The police are here that's what's up. I will call you when they leave.

Ten minutes later...

Sybil: The police were here because a former aide of mine sent me a text message that she is going to murder me.
Barry: Really? Read me the text message.
Sybil: I can't the police took it.
Barry: They didn't take your phone. Read it to me.
Sybil. It said, ugh, you're in bed with him and there was a knife.
Barry: What? You are making no sense. Read it word for word!
Sybil: I did. It was from her number.
Barry: Can you simply read it word for word.
Sybil: I did. She threatened me.
Barry: Read me the fucking message word for word.
Sybil: The phone is upstairs.
Barry: Call me when you have it.

I then hung up and listened to the Back in the High Life Again by Steve Winwood. Seriously. It's an awesome song and I just downloaded it.

Literally as the song ended, Sybil called me back.

Sybil: Here it is.
Barry: OK read it.
Sybil: You and him are in bed together.
Barry: I don't know what that means. How is that threatening?
Sybil: Well, I was scared.
Barry: Of what?
Sybil: Well when I asked her for references, she made a joke asking if I was afraid she was going to murder me. I didn't hire her and she won't leave me alone. She called a few times.
Barry: So a few calls, an incoherent text and you felt you needed the police?
Sybil: I didn't like the message.
Barry: Your story has changed so many times. You would make an amazing witness.

I didn't bother asking what the text "you and him are in bed together" meant. Best case, it never happened. Worst case, Sybil has a new boyfriend and the aide doesn't approve. Either way, I'm going to pretend it's none of my business.

No words

I'm still in shock I'm forty years old. It's been three days and yet I still feel thirty-nine. The actual "birth day" was pretty uneventful other than some crying and fifty phone calls from Sybil.

After the whole bicycle debacle I didn't expect much from my mother. At best a re-purposed Easter card wishing me a good day, at worst nothing. Turns out I need to reevaluate my expectations.

Sybil called me that morning to get my day off on the right foot.

Sybil: Happy Birthday.
Barry: Thanks
Sybil: I sent you something. You are to call me as soon as it comes.
Barry: Okay. Talk to you later.

At this point I made the assumption she sent me a check for $40 and went about my day. For a second I pondered the idea she went to a store and bought me something, but that seemed absurd. Would she get me a polo shirt? Maybe some GIJoes? No way!

When I came home later, I saw a small vase outside with some crappy flowers you would expect to see at a Nurse's station sitting by the door. I laughed to myself just assuming they were for someone else. I then read the card, "Happy Birthday, blah, blah, blah, love Mom.

I really have no words for this. I'm a forty year old man and my mother sent me flowers for a milestone birthday.

Obviously based on my rage level I decided it would be best to not call Sybil to thank her for her generosity. A few hours and five messages later checking on the status of the gift I finally decided to talk to her.

Barry: Hello
Sybil: Did you get my gift?
Barry: Yeah
Sybil: Why didn''t you call me?
Barry: Because it's a shit gift.
Sybil: What?
Barry: Who sends their son flower for their 40th birthday? Who sends their son flowers, period? I would have rather you given me the cost of the postage.
Sybil: Someone told me it was a good idea.
Barry: I have to go.

The next day, Sybil called to ask me to inventory the gifts I received. I responded swiftly with "Who cares."

That was the end of it. Since then there has been no more mention of the day. Maybe she is saving for my 50th.

AirBnB for old people

Sybil: Go by Sunrise Assisted living in Hermosa and see what it's like.
Barry: Are you going to go into assited living?
Sybil: I want to come out for a few months.
Barry: Not sure you can stay in assisted living like it's a hotel.
Sybil: Well go see.
Barry: Why don't you call first to see?
Sybil: I want you to look at it.
Barry: What's the point if they don't offer what you want?
Sybil: Why are you so nasty?

Why indeed.

Happy Birthday, what did you get me?

In my short life the the earth has gone around the sun forty times yet I have accomplished nothing. I digress, since I'm about to officially become middle aged, Sybil asked me what I would like to celebrate. Being  a man child I expressed interest in a new bicycle. Shockingly Sybil said she would provide me with a credit card to make the purchase.  I said thanks and hung up the phone before I ruined it by screaming, "CHOKE ON IT."

Twelve hours later I called Sybil and the conversation went like this:

Barry: Hi, how are you?
Sybil: I'm not buying you no bicycle. You have a bicycles. That's absurd.
Barry: Uh huh.
Sybil: I saw in the paper, a painter I knew is in jail for not paying his taxes.
Barry: I just pulled up to work. I have to go.
Sybil: Have a nice day.

She gave me life. That is gift enough.

800K

A little background on the characters in today's story:

Carol - My mother's friendemy who coincidentally was also a school teacher in the Bronx.  Over the years she enjoyed telling my mother how she was having an affair with the school janitor.  Recently she shared her fear of being pregnant with the custodian's child.  She is 76.  She has also told my mother that she plans to give all her money to her daughter as she didn't really care for her son. Key take away is Sybil hates her for having a husband that made a living. Currently alive.

Carol's Husband - Orthodontist in Brooklyn. Known for cursing at Sybil anytime she called the house. Sybil claimed he cursed at anyone who called but I suspect he had caller i.d. Deceased.

Now for today's story:

On my way to work I called Sybil. After some unpleasantries, she told me that Carol found 800k in her dead husband's closet.  Carol gave the money to her daughter to buy a house on Long Beach Island. Out of shear boredom I decided to ask a few follow up questions:

Barry: So he had 800k in cash in the closet?
Sybil: Yeah, I guess he didn't pay taxes on some money or something.

How many orthodontists take cash? If they did, how many mouths would you have to wire up before you had 800k in cash?

Barry: And she just gave the cash to her daughter. What can you do with that much cash?
Sybil: She bought a house.
Barry: You said, but she paid in cash?
Sybil: No she used a check.
Barry: But how did the cash become a check?
Sybil: My leg hurts.  It keeps twisting.

Sybil saying her leg hurt is the equivalent of me saying "Alright" when I am ready to get off the phone with her. We both hung up without saying goodbye.

My take away from the conversation was that Carol probably found 4 crisp twenty dollar bills in her dead husband's pants pocket and Long Beach Island is no place I ever want to go.

She aint dead!

Recently I texted my friend that I was thinking of going to New Jersey in October to visit my mother. He responded with, "I thought she passed." I laughed and said "Ha, never." For a second I wondered where he got such a crazy idea, but then I remembered when I started this blog I made a joke on my other blog about Sybil being dead. Clearly he never made it to the bottom of the post where I put a disclaimer about Sybil being alive and kicking (an aide).

Now that I think about it, he might be the worst friend ever. That was more than a year ago. Least he could have done was sent a condolence card.

She will live forever!!

It's all about family

When I talk about Sybil it is also good to remember that she had some siblings that were equally wonderful. Her oldest sister Bernice, lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia and pretended she was a WASP. Her kids played tennis and skied. I was mildly jealous, but Sybil was not about to buy me equipment for a sport I was too Jewish to be coordinated to play in the first place.  We would visit Bernice from time to time and for the most part I had a good time. The WASP life provided a swimming pool, a pinball machine, and an ice cream maker.  So basically in my mind she was awesome.  My brother on the other hand has different memories than me. Bernice saw him biting his nails and told him he would never amount to anything because of it. She also told him he had Crohn's disease because he was weak.

As a teenager, my brother told Sybil he hoped Bernice would get cancer and die.  A few years later she did.

Coincidence, I think not.

You just can't find good help these days

I've been wondering about something lately.

I mentioned more than once that Sybil has an aide. Forty hours a week a woman comes to 25 Taylor Street and waits on Sybil as if it is 1943 in the rural south. Obviously in that illusion you need to pretend Sybil is white. This aide cooks, cleans, runs errands, and even organizes my GI Joes (someone did it and no one will tell me who). Hell this aide even sits with Sybil while she watches her stories. When I visited, Sybil commented on how she prefers the aide to my company because the aide caters to her. I can understand that. The aide put the pillow under her head not over.

Sybil mentioned the service gets roughly $48 an hour. Now I know my mother likes having for all intents and purposes a slave, but at the same time I know she rather have forty eight dollars. This is true even if it was forty eight dollar for the whole week. Given the choice she always picks the money. So can anyone guess the angle she has going with the owner of the service? I'm assuming she pays him, then he writes a much larger bill to her insurance and she gets a kick back, or maybe she pays in sexual favors. Okay I'm kidding but I do wonder. I need to make sure Sybil is getting the best care and or I'm worried about my inheritance.

I will say I liked her aide. She crossed herself and told me she has really good patience when I asked how it was to work for Sybil. She also told me in August she was moving to Orlando. Clearly both are lies.

Vegas buffet of medicine

Being a kid is awesome. You are amazed by the simplest shit. For example, take a child out for his first steak dinner and his mind will be blown. It doesn't matter that it was Chili's and the meat tasted like leather. They don't know any better. With this in mind you will understand why when I was little  I thought my mother provided us with amazing health coverage. I based this solely on the fact we had no co-pay. Sure the medical group eventually went bankrupt, but before they did, I was able to go to the doctor every single day and there was never a bill. To a neurotic hypochondriac Jew this was like winning the lottery. 

I went to the doctor for anything and everything. Sore throat, yup. ingrown toe nail, yup. Fart that hurt coming out, yup. By sixteen I had a medical chart that was a few inches thick. My mother not only condoned it but she encouraged me to go as often as I wanted to. When I moved to California, I finally stopped the absurdity (co-pay was $40.) Now when my throat hurts I have my friend that is a hand surgeon call in the Z pack. Only did that four times this year so clearly I am no longer a hypochondriac. As for Sybil she still goes once a week to the doctor whether she needs it or not.  Today it was because her jaw hurt. Last week it was because she had the runs (her words, not mine). 

Sure I'll help, but it will cost ya!

Based on most of my posts, this might come as a shock, but I can honestly say that if I was ever in trouble, I think Sybil would help me. For example I once called her when I was 23 to tell her I lost my job. Before I could say anything else, she said, "Well I don't have any money." Since I wasn't asking for any, I screamed back, "I wasn't asking, you bitch." and hung up. See, in the end she helped by diverting my sadness to anger. Thanks mom.

A few months later she gave me some money and told me not to tell my brother.

Later in life my dad needed some money so he asked Sybil. Here response was, "Go ask Barry." Obviously she was paying it forward.

A more recent story of her generosity involves a cousin of mine. My cousin probably doesn't want this story told, but since I'm not using any names and she is probably out buying Arlo Guthrie a birthday cake I doubt she will be reading this anyway.  Now for the story.

My cousin lost both her parents at a very young age so she has had to lean on my mother pretty hard to get the criticism she deserves:

"Your major is shit."

"Your job is shit."

"I don't like where you live."

"I'm not visiting unless you lock up that dog."

A few months ago my cousin had the perfect storm of bad things happen. Her car broke down, the furnace shit the bed, she ran out of Fruity Pebbles, etc, etc. With nowhere to turn, she called Sybil.

Cousin: Sybil, it is just too much all at once. Do you think it would be possible to help me out so I can at least get another box of fruity pebbles*?

Sybil: Do you still have the ring my mother gave you?

Cousin: The one she gave me as a child? Yes, why?

Sybil: It's probably worth $500. I will give you $200 for it.

Cousin: You're an animal.

When my cousin told me the story I was actually pumped. Not for her misfortune but the fact my mother wanted to buy her stuff for pennies on the dollar.

 Sometimes I feel like Jed Clampett.

*She might have chosen the furnace as the first thing to fix.

Where's my taste?

I called Sybil yesterday and the conversation went like this:

Barry: How are you?

Sybil: I'm going to be making some money.

Barry: How?

Sybil: The Indian on the corner is selling their house and I gave them Mary (her agent friend). They were very happy.

Barry: How does that make you money?

Sybil: Well I'm going to get a commission.

Barry: For what?

Sybil: For giving them my agent. I just need to find a customer. Do you know the Indian's last name?

Barry: No.

At that point I hung up. I would love to have listened to her conversation with both the "Indian" and the agent. I'm not even sure which one she hit up for a commission. I do suggest if she really wants to help them sell the house, she stays inside during showings.

The shake down continues.

Another reason to be afraid of dogs

During Sybil's tenure as a New York City school teacher many a criminal sat across from her while she tried to "stand and deliver." Obviously based on current Rikers statistics, she failed miserably, but before we argue about nature versus nurture, I feel it is best to remind everyone that the criminal element Sybil taught transcended color and economic standing. In fact long before the black/Puerto Rican rapists and murders, Sybil molded a very famous white Jewish murderer.

That psychopath was none other than David Berkowitz, a.k.a Son of Sam, a.k.a the .44 cal killer. When I asked Sybil what it was like to teach such a notorious lunatic, she responded with, "He was a little nothing. Quiet like a mouse." I swear his arresting officer said the same thing.

To show proof that I'm not the only one who was profoundly affected by Sybil, I am posting a text I received from my brother the other day:

Watched this insane interview of David Berkowitz and how the killings were part of this satanic cult, of which this late producer (Roy Radin) had a mansion in Long Island where films ($50,000 to view) of adults screwing children. I ended up with a crazy nightmare where Sybil was one of the Satanists. She was on top of me. Grinding. I was trying to kill her.

The last sentence had me speed dialing my therapist.

Roundhouse to the vagina

If I ever had a time machine I would use it to travel back in time to eat at long defunct restaurants. I need to know if Pie in the Sky and the Rustler are as good as I remember. Once I had my fill, I suppose I would travel back to the 40s. I don't want to kill Hitler or do anything noble like that. I really just want to see the family dynamic that was going on in Sybil's childhood home. Accounts vary from my grandparents not speaking English to my grandfather being a local furrier/loan shark. The only thing I can confirm is that Sybil had three siblings, Evelyn, Bernice, and Allen. In good time I will discuss each of them but for now we can focus on Allen. Allen was the original pioneer of the family. He went west before it was cool, moving to Los Angeles in the 60's. 

Years ago I remember coming to LA and going to dinner with Allen, Sybil, and Lewis. It was one of those token family meals where no one wanted to be there. All Allen wanted to do was reminisce about trips to the Catskills when Sybil and him were little. Sybil kept telling him to shut up, but Allen kept pressing how he wanted to talk about the fun times at the Colony Inn (I've looked it up and found nothing). When Sybil refused to engage about the Catskills, Allen started yelling at Sybil that she came to visit him thirty years ago during the summer and because of his job he couldn't spend any time with her and she shouldn't have come then. Sybil screamed back, "I worked it was the only time I had off." With that, dinner was over and we parted ways with Allen. No hugs were given. Allen did look at me and say,  "Bye Bernie." 

I later asked Sybil why she didn't want to skip down memory lane with her brother. At a volume too loud for the hotel lobby she responded with, "Allen was a horrible child. On one of those trips to the Catskills, he kicked me in the vagina and I had to go to the doctor; I was in so much pain."

Still can't believe he got my name wrong.

To my mother I bequeath..

My first job out of college provided me with two great benefits, a matching 401k, and life insurance policy that paid triple my salary if I died on the job. Being I had no wife, kid, dog, or friends, I put my brother down as the beneficiary on the policy. When I told Sybil about it she had only one question:

Sybil: Why not me?

When I told her I wasn't going to bother contributing to the 401k anyway, she lost interest.

Welcome to Hillsdale

In 1975, Sybil was in her third trimester of what most would describe as a geriatric pregnancy. I was growing at a rapid rate in her belly causing her great discomfort. To combat her terrible gas, Sybil ran down to the local Medi Mart to get some antacid.

Now the story goes, she tried to walk in via the automatic door entrance, but instead of it swinging in, the door swung out, striking her and sub-sequentially me. Sybil threatened to sue claiming there was a high chance her baby was hurt. She settled on the spot for sixty bucks and the antacid she originally set out for. Sixty dollars and a bottle of milk of magnesia was the magic combo for her to forget about any damage to her unborn baby.

To this day I have never seen or heard of an automatic entrance door swinging out. I don't even think the hinges work both ways.  Even with pregnancy brain Sybil had the skill.

Can I deduct that?

Long before Sybil hand selected her accountant from the Polish People's Republic, she had her taxes done by Norman, a deaf old Jewish guy, who lived in Manhattan. My brother and I would accompany Sybil on trips to the city where she would scream at Norman that he needed to be more creative with her deductions, but alas her requests literally fell on deaf ears.

Norman was a bit of a character. While sitting in his place, the phone would ring off the hook because his phone number was one digit off from the Natural History Museum. All day people would call to ask questions and all day Norman would either answer claiming to be a porno theater or he would just tell the callers to fuck off. He was through and through a professional. During his tenure Sybil was audited twice.

Sybil once mentioned to me that back in the '70s you could deduct a child from your taxes without having an SSN number for them. Translation - on paper I have seven brothers and one sister.

Better rates than Priceline

For years my mother has been torturing me by coming to visit with open ended plane tickets. I will get a general idea of when she is leaving, then she will add three days to that, two if I'm nasty. During these trips, Sybil likes to stay at the wonderful Beverly Hills Hilton. It's where they hold Hollywood parties and I once accosted Steven Seagal for an autograph.   To your average person, paying for this hotel would be considered an extravagance, but when Sybil's pocketbook is involved it suddenly becomes quite affordable.

Here is Sybil's three step program to literally stay in the hotel for pennies a day:

Step 1:
When booking the hotel, request a government employee rate. Be as vague as possible as to what government job you have. When checking in, show them our long expired UFT (United Federation of Teachers) card. If any questions are asked, request a manager and scream at the top of your lungs you always are given that rate. 

Step 2:
Request the room next to the elevator on the first floor in the south part of the hotel. With the proper complaining a minimum of two nights will be taken off the stay due to excessive elevator noise at night.

Step 3:
Complain to your sister in law that lives by the hotel that you have no money. This will usually net a check worth a few nights of the stay.

Bonus Steps:
Complain that the food is salty when you are eating your complimentary breakfast. This will net a coupon for a free dinner.

Tell Merv that your son does PR and maybe you can work out a deal to trade nights for his services. Merv died before giving her an answer. 

With these steps your average night stay will be $49. I'd like to see Shatner do better.

Consultant on The Sopranos

Sybil bought our childhood home in 1974, mid-completion. The builder had gone bankrupt, enabling Sybil to get a deal. It also gave her the opportunity to use her personal taste to finish the home. The shag carpeting is still there to this day. When you buy quality it will last!

One thing that didn't hold up so well though, was the driveway. By the time I was in college, twenty winters had taken their toll on the pavement. Over the summers, with no regard for me getting black lung, my mother would badger me to throw a layer of tar down in a last ditch effort to save it. I would do the most half assed job you could imagine. Half the grass would be covered in tar as would my Jordans.

Finally one summer there was so little holding the driveway together that Sybil relented to have it repaved. I was shocked she was going to invest in her home. She always had the belief you never put too much money in a home, just enough so it is salable. What was next, double-paned windows?

I came home one day from my summer job as a mail man (another story), and I noticed just a small portion of the driveway had fresh pavement. It was just laid over the crumbling old driveway in a sad looking clump. I asked Sybil and she said they just began work and were figuring it out. Okay, I guess that makes sense. The next day I came home and another small section was paved over. So odd! Then the same the following day, and the following day, and the following day, until there was a patch work of new pavement covering the old driveway.

Sybil eventually told me what she did. She saw some workers paving a street a few blocks away and she worked out a deal that at the end of the day the workers would use what they had left over to repave her driveway. For a couple hundred bucks under the table they just took the pavement from the city and threw it on top of our old shitty driveway. When I went outside with Sybil to inspect the final product, Sybil looked at it, looked at my face and said "It's good enough."

Quality at its best.

The grass isn't always greener

When I was about eight I went to the bank with Sybil for one of her weekly grifter deposits. While she filled out a deposit slip, it was my pleasure to stand in line to wait her turn. As I was waiting, a man walked in and cut right in front of me like I didn't exist. I went and told Sybil this and then the following exchange occurred:

Sybil: Mister you cut in front of my son. It's my turn next.

Man: Lady, I didn't see your kid and it's my turn next.

Sybil: Mister, it's my turn next. You don't just cut in front of someone.

Man: Lady, I aint your husband. Go complain to him.

Sybil: You aint my husband? Mister you are real nasty.

Man: Lady, I aint your husband. No one cares what you say.

The guy never gave up his space in line and as he walked out of the bank, he was still muttering "I aint your husband" with a deranged smile on his face. It was as if he knew no matter what hardships he had in life, there was still someone worse off than him, and that person was my father.

If only Sybil had Tinder

When I was in college my father went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Feeling abandoned, Sybil started to date. Being this was the pre-internet days, I assume she made a couple of edits to my grandmother's ad in Screw magazine or put an ad in the Want Ad Press to meet people. I never asked.

For a little while she was seeing this guy who once took me out for a steak dinner. He was nice enough but he looked like my Calculus teacher, Mr. Fallon, who threw me out of class for telling him to shut up, so I might have had some misplaced rage when I was around him. I told him he wasn't my dad when he wanted to play catch and I cried in my room until he came up and told me I wasn't mad at him, but my dad for leaving. He was right. We hugged it out. Fine after the steak dinner I went back to college and never saw him again.

Other than Mr. Fallon I only heard about what I can imagine was a long line of suitors.

The story went like this according to Sybil:

This man asked me if I wanted to go for a ride in his Porsche. We drove around for an hour. Do you know he didn't even offer me anything to eat or drink during the ride. This beauty will spend on a fancy car, but is too cheap to offer to stop and get me a drink. I never talked to him again.

I assume the guy had a few drinks after dropping Sybil off.

Thankfully after that Sybil spared me the details of her dating life which I assume is still very active.

Going Dutch

When I was a young teenager my mother told me if I ever went on a date to make sure we went Dutch.

Barry: What's Dutch?

Sybil: It's where you split the bill. There is no reason you should be paying for her.

Barry: But it's a date.

Sybil: So what.

Barry: But you always make everyone pay if they take you out.

Sybil: Everyone has more than me.

Uh huh. Even with my limited knowledge of girls, I knew that if I asked a girl to split a bill with me, there was no chance of me getting boob.

Turns out paying didn't help.

Madoff returns

Sybil recently told me she gave a local hack of a stock broker a 100k to make her rich. He had six months to impress her or she was pulling it all back. In the course of three months, every single time I talked to Sybil she mentioned that the account was down 3k and as soon as it broke even she was pulling it from that "no good crook." Well the market clearly turned because the last time we spoke she didn't mention the broker. I was a bit confused because it usually signified the middle of our conversation. It threw the timing off.

Most conversations follow the following arc:

1. I feel awful
2. The weather here is terrible
3. How is my granddaughter?
4. I'm still down in that account. As soon as it goes up I'm pulling it.
5. I hate your wife.
6. Have you seen your brother lately?

When she went right into hating my wife, I had to stop her and actually ask about the stock account.

Barry: What's up with your stock account? You haven't mentioned it.

Sybil: I'm up a lot. 

Barry: I thought you said if it broke even you were pulling it.

Sybil: Mind your business.

I guess I have to adjust the topic order accordingly in my brain.

True story: Back in the day Sybil had a huge stock account and in her greed insisted on buying on margin. I don't know all the stocks she had but Mylan labs and Canon films ring a bell. The market crashed and she had a margin call of 300k. Somehow she fought her brokerage company saying she was confused and old and they absolved her of the debt.

Recently Sybil brought up the 300k in losses. She said she writes a portion off her taxes every year. Not sure how she write off debt she was absolved of, but did I mention her accountant has no license and drove a bus in Poland before Sybil hired her?

Morning Musings

I would put this stuff in the twitter feed, but then people would accuse me of making it up. These are actual statements Sybil made to me this morning:

I interviewed a new aide yesterday. I asked her what she would do and she said watch me. What am I a dog?

I want to be able to come visit alone. What am I supposed to fly with a schwartza?

It pays to have a notebook out when talking to Sybil.

Does he bite? Yes, but only Jews.

Growing up, two things were drilled into me. Everyone was an anti-Semite, and no matter how cute or lovable a dog looked, it would bite me. Actually, three things: Don't put your shoes on the table, it's bad luck. Now let me get back to the dog thing.

Sybil's fear was legendary.  If someone was walking a dog she would have us cross the street because there is no way it wouldn't lunge at us. If she was to go to someone's house that had a dog, she would request it be locked up or she wouldn't come inside. Most people saw dog ownership as a good way to have a Sybil free safe-zone. She once had a massive fight with my father because they were going to a Christmas party and my father said in advance he wasn't going to ask the host to lock up his dog since everyone loved it and it was friendly. She thought it would be rude of the host not to offer to lock up his family pet of ten years for one out of fifty guests who was irrational.

Between the dog fear and the rampant antisemitism my mother claimed was going on, I assumed German shepherds ran the camps during the Holocaust. Of course as an adult I realize there is no correlation between dogs and gas chambers, otherwise so many Jews wouldn't own wheaten terriers.

Long before my Jewish friends bought their hypoallergenic terriers, Sybil actually broke me of my fear by being a positive person that wanted me to rise above what she was dealing with. Kidding of course. What happened was I was playing at a friend's house who happened to own a dog. The dog never bothered me so I stayed away from it as my mother taught me.

Never make eye contact or it will bite!

Anyway, we were playing outside when Sybil pulled up. She beeped the horn and my friend's dog came running out of the house to the car. Sybil immediately locked the doors. My friend and I looked at each other puzzled. Was the dog going to open the door with its paw? Did she really need the extra level of security? After laughing in her face I was never afraid again.

When I was twenty-six I got a dog of my own and Sybil went insane.

Sybil: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID!

BARRY: Well, I live 3000 miles away and more importantly I don't live with you.

The first time Sybil visited, I put my mutt on a retractable leash and let him charge her. Just at the last second I would stop him. It was funny all fifty times I did it.  Sadly, my immersion therapy didn't help cure her.

Welsh terrier - not a pussy Wheaten

End Cut

When I was little my father would take us every Saturday night to the Coach House Diner on Route 4 in Hackensack. Based on the salad bar alone it had to be the fanciest restaurant in Bergen County. I have such fond memories of waiting at the table, guarding my mother's pocketbook, while my parents built the foundation of their perfect dinner at that salad bar. In my father's case, that foundation was made of iceberg, bacon bits and ranch dressing. After his salad, my dad would eat an end cut of prime rib while chain smoking Moore Green cigarettes. He made it to the ripe old age of 61 before dying of a stroke, but that's not the point of this story.

On our weekly trip, my father would always ask to sit in Grace's station. Grace was a sweet waitress who for some reason was really nice to my family in spite of Sybil sending half her food back every week because, well, because. Grace would always give us little extras like appetizers and free desserts to take home, and in kind, my father would leave her a decent tip. It was an understood relationship to everyone. I was a child and even I got it. Well I assumed everyone got it.

One Saturday we went to eat and Grace had the night off. We all ordered our usual and proceeded to eat our trash can salads while my mother regaled us with stories of how her first husband bought her a fur coat and treated her nice until the waitress came over to check on us.

Waitress: How is everything?

Sybil: Where are our appetizers?

Waitress: I'm sorry. You didn't order any.

Sybil: I know that. They are always given to us for free.

Waitress: I'm a bit confused. We don..

Sybil (interrupting): Send over the manager.

Manager: Hi, how are you?

Sybil: Grace always gives us free appetizers and packs us up a dessert bag to go. Where are they?

Recognizing Sybil was about to cause a huge scene, the manager offered up some potato skins. Sybil just fed Grace to the wolves for more bacon bits. Damn, my parents loved those things.

The next time we went in, Grace explained to Sybil how she got her in trouble and that she gives us the free food because she likes us and the owner doesn't know. Sybil just looked at her and said, "How was I supposed to know that?"

Two weeks later Grace had the night off again. This time the fight ended with free mozzarella sticks.. I have no memory of seeing Grace after that. Thankfully we still had Friday night dinners at Charlie Brown's.

What was it friday?

For as long as I can remember, Sybil has been playing the stock market like Gordon Gekko. When I was a child she would pace the house on the cordless AT&T phone while asking her stock broker for up to the minute quotes, writing the figures down in one of those address books a bank would give out free. She literally would do this from 9:30 to 4:00 during the summer. No clue how she kept track of this crap when she was working.  If I asked her to go anywhere it had to be after the market closed.  It wasn't like she actively trading, she just had to know how much more she was worth than my father at any given second. She had her net value down to the eighths.  Even with modern technology, Sybil still relies on the old school method of bothering some hapless twenty something all day on the phone. In between calls to brokers who aren't sick of her or haven't realized she isn't going to use them because their commission is too high, she likes to call her credit card company to see what charges have posted. It's always nice when she calls me during her downtime to tell me about the nice guy working for Bank of American she just talked to who lives in South Carolina.  "Did you know Jews live down there?" she will tell me authoritatively.

When I was a kid Sybil asked my brother and I for stock tips. I'm not sure if she did this because she wanted us to feel important (unlikely) or was looking for ways to distract us because we wanted to use the phone. My brother gave her Microsoft which she still owns to this day (God bless you inheritance) and I gave her Toys R Us. Lewis's logic was based on P/Es and yield, mine was based on the fact I wanted to go to fucking Toys R Us. 

Knowing I was directly responsible for some of my mother's money, I became obsessed with asking her what the value of the stock was at all times. There was this one time she was on the phone and I was screaming, "What was it friday", over and over again.  I did this all the time until one day the stock skyrocketed. I was pumped.  I saw the future and the future was toys! As the stock began to move, Sybil only had one thing to say.

"Shit, I should have bought it."

She never bought the stock I picked figuring I was an idiot child and there was no way it could perform well. Little did she know, Christmas was coming and toy stocks were prime for a move. She could have made some great cash if she listened to me even if my logic was based on nothing. I'm not sure why she bought the stock my brother chose. It could be that at 12 he already cultivated the look of her current hapless broker; stained khakis, mild hair loss, and a penchant for coughing as he read the newspaper, but it also could have been she liked him better.

Maybe You're Next

Growing up, everyone in town knew Sybil. Whether it was a local mom at my school that was overly religious that Sybil screamed, "Go ask Jesus!" at because of a misunderstanding at a bake sale or a cashier who defied her by not taking a Sears coupon for a new Die-Hard battery when she was trying to buy eggs, she had cultivated a solid reputation.

The police were particularly fond of her for various reasons.  Let's see, there was the time she had a fight over a ticket for parking in a handicap spot at Shop-Rite. She left my grandmother in the car, so in her mind that meant she could park there. "Look at her, she is clearly handicapped." There were the weekly calls she would make when my brother and I would have some fight about who had to get up and manually change the TV channel. There was the numerous times the police were forced to show up because our smoke alarm auto dialed them when Sybil was making her famous Sunday roast. I did love the canned potatoes. In other words, if I had grown up in a bigger city, it wouldn't haven taken long for the cops to have shot my mother and thrown a Saturday Night Special in her pocket-book.  I would testify that I saw her reach for it.

I remember this one time the police were called to our house because our house keeper was having an epileptic seizure. This happened so many times it was insane. Not to side track the story but two great times this happened:

1. My mom pulls in the driveway with Lewis and I in the car and my dad comes running out of the house screaming, "Marion's dead!" She was having a seizure and his instinct was to run out of the house. I don't even think he knew we were in the driveway. Okay, this might be the most hysterical thing my father ever did and I'm laughing my ass off as I type. He was clearly high.
2. I'm watching Falcon Crest with the house keeper, (I didn't have a lot of friends) and she starts convulsing. By the time Hillsdale PD showed up, Marion was done flopping on the shag carpeting and just lying peacefully face down. The cops propped her up in a chair and said to me she looks fine.  Just as they say it, she farts and pisses all over the chair and floor. Not going to lie, I laughed as they took her to the hospital. She was fine just forgot to take her meds.

Back to the story. When the house keeper was having this in particular seizure, the cops came and my mother was being her charming self when one of the cops says this to her:

Cop: Two of your neighbors have died recently. Maybe you're next.

I think complete hysteria would accurately describe Sybil's response. The cops got out of there so fast I don't even think they helped poor old Marion. She died fifteen years later in Jamaica. Not sure if it was related to her poor treatment that day, but I should probably tell Sybil to sue.

About two years after the incident the cop in question bought the house next to my mother.  They've been neighbors for twenty years now. Not sure how often they have dinner.

I keep side tracking this story and I must apologize, but when I was home last, this long retired cop was out mowing his lawn in a pair of umbros and nothing else. I honestly have never been more horrified looking at a man in my life. He looked like a golden yukon potato with four tooth picks sticking out of it for appendages and a smaller rustic as a head. I wanted to take a picture but I wasn't sure if he was still carrying. He did have a nice mower though. Snapper!!

Okay, final note, I just remembered another great time an ambulance came for the house keeper. She ate a pound of corn beef and drank a can of condensed milk. Damn it, I wish I remembered her symptoms for why we called the paramedics. All I can remember is she spent the night in the hospital. 

Story for another time - My mother stopped paying the house keeper in 1985, but she kept working until 1996.

The only way Sybil would behave in a museum

Recently a friend gave me the attached painting as a gift. I honestly have never been given a more thoughtful present in my life. Sybil's essence has been captured in oils perfectly. Short of her doing the painting in ranch dressing on a piece of wax paper, I don't see how there could be any improvements.  I hung the painting over my desk for inspiration as I put pen to paper writing about the Sybil I know and love.

The painting is really hanging in the garage in front of my car. I figure it will be fitting to stare at it when I leave the engine on with the door closed one cold November night.

Thank you, Laura, I truly am touched. Between this painting and the trip back east, the rage is alive!

I've already had three arguments with the painting today.

The trip is dead...long live the trip

On the day I left NJ, my mother hugged me from her stair lift chair so tightly that if she had hit the wrong button she surely would have broken my neck and dragged my body up the stairs. I imagine by the fifth stair she would have realized what had occurred and in a panic would reverse directions and run over my corpse.

Once I was safely out of her clutches and 3,000 miles away I called Sybil to thank her for the lovely visit.

Barry: I'm home. Thanks for the tickets.

Sybil: When are you coming again? I enjoyed your visit even if you yelled at me. I just found a picture from your second grade class. I never liked Miss Lolk (my second grade teacher).

Barry: Will let you know. Bye.

Within the week my brother will be visiting Sybil. I would let him guest blog, but I'm too much of a control freak. Seriously what if his writing is better than mine? Hopefully he will give me the details so I can write about his trip or I guess I could read it in the police blotter.

It puts the lotion in the basket

Among soy packets, medicine bottles, crumbs, a Time magazine about the ongoing hunt for Osama, I found a prescription hand pump full of lidocaine.

Barry: What is this?

Sybil: Can you rub that on my back? Oy. It hurts. That should help.

I should note Sybil wasn't in the kitchen when I asked. I'm pretty sure she would have given me the same response if I was holding a soy packet.

I wasn't sure what to do. Being this is my mother and she gave me life I shouldn't have hesitated to help alleviate her pain.  Forty-four minutes later I finally relented.

Barry: Fiiiiiiiiiine I'll do it.

Later that day she tried to get me to do it again. Fool me once...

Barry: Sophia, go help grandma with her special lotion.

Sophia gladly did it. She doesn't know any better and as I said, what's the point of therapy if she hasn't had anything traumatizing happen to her.

I later used the lidocaine to masturbate.

Choke on it - Dinner with mom

Is there really anything better than sharing a meal with family?

On the second night of the trip, we decided to venture out and eat dinner in Ridegwood.  It's a town a few miles from Hillsdale.  Picture Hillsdale, but the bagel store is on the left side of the street instead of the right, and there is zero parking. I circled the place we planned to eat a few times, cursing the parking situation, while simultaneously smiling at the fact there was a Ben and Jerry's walking distance from the restaurant. Finally I gave up and dropped Sybil at the front door.  I told her to get a table while Sophia and I found parking. Luckily we found a spot exactly three spaces up from Ben and Jerry's (very important fact).

Sophia and I walked in the restaurant where we found Sybil scowling.  In all of this, it's best to picture me as dynamite and Sybil as a child throwing lit matches in my direction.

Barry: What's wrong?

Sybil: You dropped me at the side door.  I had to walk past three other doors to get in.

Barry: Who cares.

With no response from Sybil, the conversation was over.

A few minutes later...

Sybil: This food is good, but it could be a touch hotter. Just a touch. (Massive steam coming off her plate)

We then fought over the check. By fought, I mean she watched as I paid and I punched her in my mind.

Barry: So I parked three spots up from Ben and Jerry's. Can you walk to the car? You want to get ice cream?

Sybil: Yes I can make it, but I don't want to go in the ice cream shop. Get me a sundae with caramel sauce. I'll wait in the car. Don't forget the cherry.

Barry: Okay see you in a few minutes.

Sophia and I walked over to get ice cream while Sybil shuffled off down the street. With ice cream in tow, I proceeded to the car. One spot, two spots, three spots. Damn where did the car go? Four spots, five spots, six spots, seven spots, eight spots. Could I have parked this far away? Nine spots, ten spots, that looks like it, but I don't see Sybil. I stare right into the windshield of Sybil's car, but I don't see her. Finally I move out of the glare and notice Sybil squinting like a one eyed pirate waving me aboard with her hook. In actuality it was a serious grimace and her using her fingers to point/wave at me.

I opened the car door and handed Sybil her two scoops. As she grabbed them with her claws, she started screaming at the top of her lungs that the car was ten spots up and not three.

BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!!!! "

Barry: What the fuck is the difference? Three spots? Ten? You could use the exercise. CHOKE ON YOUR ICE CREAM!"

At this point Sybil tried to twist the whole thing around and tell me that isn't how you treat your mother especially in front of your daughter. She then ate her ice cream.

Do I regret snapping in front of my five year old? Of course. Would I do it again and again and again? It's a safer bet than thinking Sybil would pay for my ticket on the next visit.

I later explained to Sophia that this isn't how you treat a parent and there are extenuating circumstances at play. She told me she understood. Pretty sure what was saved in plane tickets will be spent on therapy.


Choke on it (according to Webster's Dictionary) - When my brother was a teenager, he was fighting with my mother while she was eating and he screamed "choke on it."  In the years to follow I would take the statement and make it my own. Every time I would fight with Sybil I would say it eventually. I'm not sure if I wanted her to choke on her words or I somehow wanted Darth Vader power to spontaneously make her choke. I'm 39 now and still saying it with the venom of a stupid teenager.

The key to a happy healthy life is consistency.

All you need is a dollar and a dream

For as long as I can remember Sybil has had a weird obsession with scratch off lotto tickets. I can sorta understand the instant gratification of winning, but it just seems like such a low class form of gambling. And if there is anything my family knows about it's class. Why couldn't she be obsessed with baccarat? It would get her that much closer to being a Bond villain. But alas, she likes to buy one dollar, three dollar, and sometimes twenty dollar tickets at the local Quick Check.

Not the point of the story but a funny side note is that when she buys them she usually can't wait to get home and insists on borrowing a penny from the "give a penny, take a penny" jar and scratches them at the counter. In a pinch she will use her mauve finger nail, but rest assured either way she is taking and keeping a penny.  It is very amusing to watch her do this while the people in line behind her have to wait. She gives zero fucks.

During my visit I quickly realized that my mother and five year old daughter both shared a love of scratching. What a great way for them to spend some time together. Both like to make messes and neither know how to read to see if they won. The first night I was there my mother bought a bunch of tickets and gave some to Sophia to scratch (only the dollar ones). Shockingly, winner, winner, chicken dinner! Sophia's furious scratching netted $25! The next morning I was walking out the door when Sybil asked me to cash in the tickets for more tickets.  She gave me very specific denominations to get. One five dollar, one ten, two threes, and four ones. I obliged, and handed her the tickets upon my return and went and hid in my room.

Ten minutes later my kid came in with a sad look on her face. I asked if grandma told her she had my nose again, but as it turns out, what grandma Sybil did was much worse. She scratched all the tickets and didn't share.

I sat there for a second as a little vein started throbbing in my head. I was in Sybil's house less than 24 hours and it was go time.

I jumped on my mother's stair lift and patiently rode it to the first floor to confront her. A million scenarios ran through my head:

A. Do I kill her? Would my daughter be able to keep this quiet?
B. Do I rub the bagel and lox she was eating in her face? I did buy it after all.
C. Do I just yell like a fucking lunatic?

I chose C.

Barry: Are you fucking kidding me? You didn't share with her?  Are you a fucking animal? She is five and your grand-daughter. It was an activity to do together.

Sybil: I bought the tickets, so if I don't want to share I don't have to.

Barry: You really are an asshole.

Sybil: Don't talk to me like that. Where do you want to have lunch?

We went to the Fireplace.

Philip Roth

A good quote from Philip Roth that pretty much sums up my trip to see my mother and my life in general.

"A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die"

Betting Man

For the last few months, Sybil has been hounding me to visit. Since there was no good way to spin a trip to the 25 Taylor Street pain cave, I decided the best approach would be to piggy back a vacation my brother planned back east to Sag Harbor. Something about him renting a house, having a car service pick up Sybil, blah, blah, blah. In theory it sounded like a great way to visit without really visiting.  There would be enough distractions and people that I could possibly avoid talking to Sybil the entire time.  My daughter could play with my brother's daughter and I more importantly could hide while other people dealt with Sybil requesting her tomato be sliced extra thin.  "No, that isn't thin enough. Do it again."

When I told Sybil the glorious plan she immediately said no.  She needed to see me and my brother and our collective children separately. I would like to say this had to do with her being lonely and wanting to spread out people visiting, but I think it had more to do with her driving home that my brother and I should be close but not that close. I responded by saying well I guess I'm not coming then because that's the only free time I have.

SO THEN DON'T COME!

That was the end of it until I realized I had two days off Memorial Day weekend. Hmmmm, four days off.  That's nice. What should I do? Let me think about that for a bit. Mid-day Tuesday before the weekend in question I called Sybil and told her about my four days off and if I only knew sooner I would have come for a visit.  If I had stopped there I would have been free, but I added the following, "Well, I know it's short notice but if you want to pay for the tickets, I will come visit."

I thought the empty gesture was the equivalent of me standing in an OTB with the sports almanac from Back to the Future in one hand and a dozen tickets for American Pharoah in the other. I thought I had a sure thing!

Sybil: How much are the tickets?
Barry: Let me look... $2600 plus tax on United.
Sybil: Call me in a bit and I will give you a credit card.
Barry (quietly): okay

I sat there for a moment wondering if she was serious. Would she really spend the money? A few minutes later I got a confirmation email from United. She booked the trip for me.

I truly gambled and lost.

More on the trip later.

Upon further research I see the almanac only goes up to 2000.  Clearly I can't gamble for shit.

I wish I married someone like you

I called Sybil the other day and she started the conversation with, "I wish I married someone like you." I don't know if it was meant as insult to my dead father or that she felt I was good with my kid or that she recently looked at my bank statement.  Odds are it wasn't a compliment.  After that she proceeded to ramble the following:

I had a bagel this morning and it was terrible, the Guatemalan who fixed the steps did a good job,  the guy who runs the agency who provides my aide came over with his son who has downs, I mean is autistic, and he played with himself, I told him him you don't do that in polite company, my back hurts, when are you coming again, It rained today.

Which led to the following exchange:

Barry: Hold up.  Did you just say someone played with themself in your home? How are you glossing over that? How old was he?

Sybil: He was 16 or 17.

Barry: Did he take out his penis?

Sybil: No he stuck his hands down his pants and played with it?

Barry: What did his dad say?

Sybil: Nothing.

Barry: Okay then. I'm at work. Talk to you later.

At that point Sybil just hung up with no good bye, but I know she was thinking "I love you."

Sorry for the delay in posts.  I was pretending I cared about work, life, etc.  There will be a post a day going forward until I sell this and there is a movie.

Birthday Flowers

It never gets old:

My real estate agent sent me flowers for my birthday. They were left out in the rain by UPS. By the time I opened the door, they were frozen. I called that company and they are sending me new ones.

I feel bad for Sybil. She has the worst luck with flowers. They always seem to come damaged. The replacements seem to come damaged too. By the third set, the florist catches on though.

Old Bitch

Seventy seven years and nine months ago, my grandmother went to a back alley abortion doctor behind Moisha's Bakery on 2nd Avenue in NYC. I don't care how many hamantaschen that plumber claimed to have stuck up there, he clearly didn't go to medical school because on January 13th, 1938, Sybil began her reign of terror.

Here's to another seventy seven!