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May 25, 2005
Maybe I'll Eat Kosher Today
I needed to get to New York City in order to get my flight to Budapest a couple weeks ago, so I decided to take the bus. I've had good luck with the bus. I mean I've met a lot of crazies and enjoyed their banter while on the bus, then ran like hell from them once we arrived. Unfortunately the bus to New York was pretty empty and uneventful; the only thing noticed happening was the little girl in the seat behind me reaching between the seats and poking me in the arm every so often.
I arrived in Manhattan just in time to catch the end of a parade. I would have liked to stay and watch the straglers - a few crazy men, tarot card readers, guys manning the Nuts 4 Nuts stands - but I had to get to the airport. I had to catch my flight.
Not that there wouldn't be another, but my dad was going to meet me when I arrived in Budapest, and when he's on vacation - like he was - he has nothing to do but whine it seems.
He passed the entire week or so that we spent at my GrandMother and Grandfather's house whining to his mom about how she treated me better. "Mo-om. He got a bigger piece." "Mom. How come he gets three meatballs and I only get two?" "What am I? Chopped liver?"
Last time we met up at his parents house he whined to me about how people orderKosher meals on the plane always get their meals first. "Have you noticed how they always get their's first? And bigger portions too. I should order one next time."
I thought that wasn't a half bad idea, so when I ordered my ticket over the innerweb and was given the option to select - no, almost told to select - a special meal I ordered a Kosher meal.
I didn't think anything of it until the meal cart came down the aisle. Oh boy! I wonder if it's chicken or pasta or beef or pasta.
Oh. That's right. I ordered a Kosher meal.
I wonder what's in a kosher meal. I wonder what makes it kosher.
See, I'm not Jewish. I don't know anything about eating kosher except that kosher pickles are pretty good. I don't think I met anybody Jewish until I was in college. I only did it for the quicker, bigger plate of food. And at the time I ordered it I didn't think anything of ordering a Kosher meal, but then surrounded by Orthodox Jews -- I may not have grown up knowing any Jews, but I still knew about the funny sideburns. The hats. The beards. The yamikas -- well, I started to fell a little uneasy.
Will they try to convert me? No. They'd think I'm jewish. What if they try to talk to me about the Torah? Could I tell them I just wanted more food? Is eating Kosher a sin if you're not Jewish? Will they get violent?
Then the kosher meals came -- and as promised, they came first. But they skipped over me. Despite being hungry as sheol - that's hebrew for hell - I was pretty glad when they skipped over me.
Posted by calculatoronfire at May 25, 2005 01:34 PM
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Comments
Hey, welcome back. Was this another impulse travel like Istanbul was? I once drove, without any provocation, from Massachusetts to Vermont and back again. That's about as impulsive as I've ever been.
Posted by: mike at May 25, 2005 02:49 PM
No. This one was planned. Well, going was.
I guess I'm getting less impulsive in my old age.
Or something like that.
Posted by: brian at May 25, 2005 06:14 PM
The suspence has been festering...........What was the Kosher meal? and why, oh why, was it not served to you first?
Had they just overlooked you because they new.........that you are not a Jew...........or was it something more secretive about you........... Perhaps that you were hungry too
Posted by: at June 8, 2005 07:15 PM
The meal came in a huge cardboard box and claimed to be both Kosher and Long Life.
I thought that meant healthy, but it really meant that the box was able to sit in storage for an extraordinarily long period of time without going "bad."
It consisted of dried up crackers, breaded beef, tuna spread and some apple sauce all of which I could happily have passed on.
Posted by: brian at June 9, 2005 06:46 PM