ENTRY: March 27, 1971
So, finally he’s here. Nine months, what God, another joke? Okay, she ate the damned apple, so stick it to the snake. But what would you know, another man. For six hours I’m lying there, dying from pain before the shmendrick walks in like some king, smiles at all the cutesy nurses, finally sees me and says “Yetta, you look good.” I look good and he should get a giant boil on his tuchus. God, me again, a couple more things: One, it would kill you if David, yes a good biblical name, to hell I was going before I’d agree to Morty like my Saul wanted, so it would kill you if you gave him some hair so he doesn’t look like an overripe peach with eyes? Two, so how about a new rule, labor before childbirth lasts only as long as the act of conception. I could live with a two minute labor, and that’s from when Saul starts thinking about it. And David’s lying on my belly (God, you can have the extra weight back now, I’m done with it) and he’s smiling at me and Saul says “can I hold him, you’ve been carrying him for nine months.” It’s a good thing I’m so tired or Saul would get a second bris, this time with a butter knife and no wine. So listen, God, I need some rest, but a tip for the next world you create. Skip the cockroaches, and if women have to suffer, hemorrhoids will suffice – we don’t need husbands too.
ENTRY: October 2, 1987
It’s Erev Yom Kippur, and this year Saul got the good seats. Just in front of that new, cut young Cantor, what a Kol Nidre this will be. And he’s single, not that I am. Memo to self, find out what Saul’s hiding with the good seats. I know he’s not schtupping his secretary, for that he’d have me made President of the Woman’s Club and maybe a seat on the Board. And God, what to wear. I could wear that new black silk, but it doesn’t go at all with my mink. God, could you maybe give me a hint what kind of shmatah Natalie Stein, you know her, big nose and too much eye makeup, is wearing tonight? Would that be too much to ask?
ENTRY: June 14, 1990
That putz, where does he get off saying he doesn’t love me, hasn’t for years. What? I didn’t cook his meals, sew buttons back on his shirts always popping off, always a size too small. This is how he repays me. He should breakfast with worms. It would be easier if there were another woman, maybe a bit younger, maybe a shiksa, that I could understand. But no, god forbid, just “I don’t love you anymore.” What a schmuck, and me – didn’t see it coming. So God, this is payback for what, exactly? That Yom Kippur I snuck a half a bagel before sunset. Have a heart, there was no cream cheese, much less lox. The kids are grown, I should be thankful for that I suppose, some nachos I’ll carry forward, that and the house the Lexus and the summer place, let him live in some apartment, may he someday rot in hell. What to do? First a good lawyer, heaven knows he’ll find some shyster. Second, two buttons left on each of his damned shirts. Let him poke himself with the needle, the prick. I’ll survive, it’s not like my life with him wasn’t tsuris heaped on mishegas. I’m better rid of him. I’ll show him, clean him out good, he’ll think prunes are second rate when I’m done with him. Oh God, am I such a bad person, you should make me suffer like this, you haven’t given me enough grief already? This is how You repay a mother and wife? God, you have some twisted sense of humor, but I’ll survive, just to prove You wrong too. Oy, if only God were a woman, what a world this could be.
First appeared here on April 4, 2016
