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Mar. 16, 2007 Judith Schwarz is a 46-year-old housewife. She is married to Sam Schwarz, 50, a kosher butcher. Judith and Sam, married 20 years, live in a five-room apartment in a brownstone building in the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn, with their 8 children, aged 6 to 18. Judy's daily life is hectic and unrelenting. She rises at 6 AM and starts making breakfast for 10, frying eggs and beef sausages, toasting bread and brewing coffee. She eats alone as the family is just rising, so that she can serve them all herself later. While they are eating breakfast, she packs nine brown bags, making salami and pastrami sandwiches right and left. Finally, she bundles her husband and children off to work, and starts picking up the dishes. She and Sam have been thinking of a dishwasher, but they're always strapped for cash, so Judy washes the dishes by hand. For this chore, she just throws an apron over her usual gray housedress with black and blue polka-dots. Once the dishes are washed and rinsed, Judy flies into action sweeping up around the breakfast table and kitchen in general, and running a quick vacuum cleaner over the carpets in the halls and the living room. Then she has to make nine beds, muttering to herself, "If only they would learn to make their own beds, it would help so!" She gathers up the dirty clothes, saying to herself, "For Pete's sake, couldn't they at least turn their clothes right side out? What? Am I supposed to be everybody's valet already?" Finally, though, she gets all the clothes into the washer. She's thankful that finally they have a washer-dryer combo. For years she used a rotary washer and a clothesline on the back porch. Then, a little after noon, she goes out shopping, taking her wheeled metallic shopping cart. Spending an hour at the supermarket looking for the best buys and waiting 15 minutes in line for a cashier, she has to drag the stuff back 3 blocks. Once when she had gotten to the cashier, she found she had forgotten her wallet, and had to rush back home before she could get her groceries. She felt like screaming to high heaven. She suffers from occasional migraine headaches in any case. Once home, she sits down for half an hour to go over the mail, write checks for the bills, and balance the bankbooks. After that, she cleans the bathroom, dusts around the apartment, discards old newspapers and tends to other chores as she spots them. There's always a pile of clean clothes that need to be ironed. Thank goodness she has a mangle and can do the sheets more quickly than before. Sam doesn't like to sleep on unironed sheets. Finally at about 4:30, she starts getting supper for 10 ready. Sam, her husband, walks in at 6:05. His butcher shop is only two blocks away, and he gets off at 6:00. He gives Judy a perfunctory kiss, and says, "Where's supper, honey?" "It'll be ready in 10 minutes. You know, pot roast takes a little longer." "Well, you just start 10 minutes earlier. You know I like to eat as soon as I get home." "You mean you can't wait 10 minutes?" "Please, Judy, will you just start a little earlier the next time you make a pot roast?" "Oh, all right, all right. Sam, why do you have to be so difficult? Whatever His Majesty wants!" By this time, all the children are home too. They sit down at the table, and Judy starts serving everybody, though her feet are killing her and her forehead is moist with sweat. She manages to eat quickly as they all take their time, so that the minute they rise, she can start picking up the dishes. Around 7:30, everything is back in order, and the dishes are in the cupboard, spick and span. Sam is sitting before the TV, with his stocking feet on the coffee table, smoking and drinking Mogen David. So Judy goes into the bedroom, and slips on a peach chemise and peignoir set. Approaching Sam, she puts her arms around him, and asks, "Why don't we just lie down together for a while?" "Not tonight, honey, the fights are on." "You mean you'd rather watch the fights than lie with me?" "Don't be that way, honey. These are very important fights. We can have a jump tomorrow night." "A jump! Is that what you call making love to your wife?" Judy is upset and exhausted. She is hurt and frustrated. She is furious. Then suddenly, as happens in cases like this, she starts getting a tremendous hot flash. She is on the point of fainting. She plops down at the desk in the dining room, in front of the family's PC. Esther, her girlfriend from next door, has told her about a great new website, called www.useless-knowledge.com, where you can post articles at liberty. She does a Yahoo Search and finds the website. "If Sam ever finds out about this he'll kill me," she thinks to herself, "I'd better use a pen-name. But what? Oh, I know, I'll just look in the phone book and use the first name I see." She picks up the Brooklyn telephone directory and opens it at random. The first listing she sees is Tom Pain's Bathhouse for Men. "Hmmm. Tom Pain. That's good enough. Anything will do." Logging in as Tom Pain and still very uncomfortable with her hot flash and her migraine headache, she reads a half dozen articles. Then she goes to the Rebuttal Section and starts typing out the most venomous, vitriolic, nauseating garbage she can think of, working herself up into a frenzy verging on hysteria, with her eyes flashing satanically. Her online enema or catharsis works like a charm, and after she vituperates all the authors on the website with the most odious vulgarities, she feels rejuvenated and at peace. "Hey, this is great, I'll have to do it more often." ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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