Rodney Dangerfield and I have many similarities: We’re both Jewish, we’re both hilarious, we both did stand-up comedy in the “Borscht Belt” resorts of the Catskill Mountains, and we both get no respect.
Broosevelt, Noni, and I did a Hebrew-reading competition. I read more quickly, fluidly, and accurately than both of them, but the Boss declared Broosevelt the winner because god forbid her children lose at something.
At age 44, I’m putting a tennis beat-down on some punk-ass millennial more than ten years younger than me, and this old dude walks over and says to the millennial, “You played in college? Your tennis is beautiful.”
Where are my props? When will my greatness be appreciated?
The state of Israel doesn’t respect that I, as a teacher of tightly quarantined and regularly tested wealthy international students at a boarding school, am on the goddamn front lines every day. First the government said I was gonna get vaccinated and then they said I had to wait. And then they said they were running out of vaccine and that the entire country is gonna have to press pause. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, the CEO of Pfizer better damn well know that my ancestors didn’t suffer torture and death so I could wait in line with people in third-world countries.
Not that I’ll even get the vaccine when it’s available; my moral and medical philosophies prohibit me from doing so. Yet my own colleagues don’t respect my beliefs. Some presumptuous teacher sent a WhatsApp to all the teachers about abortion finally being legalized in Argentina and the principal sent an email to all the teachers asking for information so we could get the vaccine. Do these cancel culture fools not appreciate that life starts at conception and that vaccines lead to some really, really bad allergic reactions?
I visited one of my constitutionally weaker students in the hospital. All I got was an email saying I’m a “good person.”
Panini baked nearly 60 cookies for her friends in bidud (quarantine) but said she didn’t make any extra for me.
(Note: There were 20 left over cuz Panini sucks at math.)
We sat down for dinner on New Year’s Eve and, after 10 minutes, the Boss and Panini left to schmooze with the neighborhood ladies and deliver Panini’s burned cookies to her friends. 10 minutes after that, Broosevelt was in the corner working on his Legos, Boni was who the hell knows where, and it was just me and OG at the table. I thought we might have a couple of minutes of quality-time together, but OG picked up a handful of green beans, looked directly at me, and, with a big smile on her face, said, “This is the worst year of my life.”
A couple hours later, Panini was on a Zoom with her friends and I committed the apparently unforgivable atrocity of saying hi to her friends. Tears flowed, milk spilled, a wife screamed at her husband, and the disrespect and disdain for Saul had reached its climax.
2021 is when this shit ends. 2021, the Year of Saul, is when COVID ends, Trump kills himself, and Saul finally gains some goddamn dignity and respect.
Whoa ... I am feeling for you, man. Especially Panini, not saving you any cookies. That is cruel. Unless her cookies are crap, which I am assuming is not the case. In terms of your dinner ending after 10 minutes, I mean ... isn't that standard for the Honey Badgers? You could come to Spain, where we have dinners + "sobremesas" (after-dinner conversation) that last 1 to 2 to 3 hours, depending if it's a normal dinner or a holiday.
ReplyDeleteYou DO have my respect for beating up on 20-some and 30-some tennis players, because that is my #1 goal in life, which is slowly slipping through my fingers as I pass 50 with no end to COVID in sight and thus no opportunity to beat up these young posers in hoops and soccer.
But in general, I feel like you should just love yourself because respek is something that is disappearing in our society, especially for those of us who deserve it, like Ali G says, if you look up "respek" it's not even in the dictionary any more.
"respek" not in the dictionary lol Uncle Dan xoxoxo
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