Wordsmoker

9:43 AM

WW:  “I don’t want to rent my house to Jews.”   The real estate agent just called.  He said the woman who owns that four-bedroom place we want told him, “I don’t want to rent my house to Jews.”

LL:  And just what is that supposed to mean?

WW:  That she hates Jews.

LL:  We should just go ahead and rent the house, anyway. Let’s go shopping for hammocks and barstools.  Let go and let God, right?

WW:  We can’t. She won’t rent to Jews.

LL:  Letting a mean-spirited dyslexic push us around is no way to set a good American example for this community in terms of upholding basic human rights.

WW:  You think American Jews infected this woman with dyslexia.

LL:  She has a perfectly legitimate right to protect her property from being damaged.  And besides,  a dyslexic is bound to misread just about anything, and I think you know very well what I’m talking about.

WW: You can’t be doing this to us.

LL:  Kristallnacht!

WW: Uh.

LL:  She obviously thought it was the Jews who were breaking all those windows.  No wonder she ‘s skittish!  She probably thinks we’ll work ourselves into some kind of Jewish frenzy and break every window in the house!

WW:  Did Anne Frank break windows?

LL:  I love Anne Frank!  This whole situation just cries out for a little bit of sensitivity training.

WW:  Oh. I’m being insensitive.

LL:  Give this woman the benefit of the doubt.  Wedge your big fat feet into her tiny dyslexic mocassins and march around in them for a while.  Try to get a feel for how she sees real estate.

WW:  I should see real estate through her tiny dyslexic mocassins?

LL:  Why do you always have to debate everything with me?  Can’t you accept that maybe, JUST MAYBE, I might be right for once?  Why does every discussion have to turn into some kind of ugly rhetorical contest?

WW:   You can’t even parse a simple sentence like “She hates Jews.”  What sort of rhetorical contest is that?

LL:  Did you ever think that maybe I say things because I want us to have a healthy relationship?  That I don’t say them simply because I want to gain some sort of trivial moral high ground?

WW:  I’m begging you.  Please.  What are these “healthy” things you say?  Because I spend 80% of my life asking you to clarify your insane thoughts and opinions.  How is that “healthy” for me?

LL:  “When the flowers greet Face-of-the-Sky-Maize-God, when the face of the jewel-moon tree has sprouted, we must dance away from the cesspool.”

WW:  Your mind is like some kind of bizarre weapon, isn’t it?

LL:  Your too-literal approach really ends up focusing on the tree and entirely missing the cesspool, doesn’t it?

WW:  I guess it does.

LL:  Look.  You brought me here to learn, to broaden my mind, and I’ve been dabbling… in translation.  Yes.  Trying my hand at translating some ancient Mayan poetry.  I’m convinced that it contains knowledge that could change the world, if only it could be brought to light.

WW:  This feels a lot like aggression.  Isn’t that illegal?

LL:  Listen, Baby Grumbles.  My life is complete here.  I’ve got you.  I’ve got the Maya and my literary interpretations of their beautiful poetry, and the only thing that’s missing, really, is pumpkin pie.

WW:  I wouldn’t have guessed that.  I mean, the pie.  How do you expect to get your hands on a pumpkin pie in this part of the world?

LL:  Before we tackle that, we need to make room in the refrigerator for a pumpkin pie.   A big one.

WW:  Maybe if you found a new home for some of your beer, your big pumpkin pie could feel comfortable here.

LL:  Daddy’s going to have a few beers tonight!

WW:  What else is new?

LL:  Oh, that’s rich!  And what will you be having tonight?  Vodka, vodka, or vodka?

TO BE CONTINUED…