The lady ahead of me at the counter is paying for some small
colored bits of shiny paper. They are neatly stacked and
packed in a plastic wrapper. It certainly piques my
curiosity, and, vaguely remembering that Purim is just
around the corner, I stretch my imagination as far as it
will go. Hey, presto! I've got it; these must be shalach
monos labels!
You have to be "with it" nowadays, aware of every new fad
that is currently in vogue. So I paste on an innocent smile
and taking on a self assured air, I turn to the young woman
as she is counting out her change.
"Labels, those, are they?"
I must have said something wrong. At least the lady is
genuinely taken aback by my ignorance. She casts the
saleswoman a despairing look and mumbles something about
"chocolate papers."
Aha. Oh well, now I understand. It is that season again, all
right. The time for creativity has arrived! As I turn around
and shamefacedly make my way to the plainest brand of bland
cellophane paper on the shelves, I envisage dozens of
capable baalebustas patchkering in their immaculate
kitchens, deftly filling intricate molds with melted
chocolate, adding delicate flavors to various mixtures and,
finally, wrapping each dainty little praline into one of
those attractive shiny bits of paper. A gulf of despair
tries to overtake me as I reach for a pile of white
cardboard boxes. This is just not my time of the year, and I
want to run away, hibernate somewhere until Erev Pesach.
You see, with a damp shmatte or dustcloth in hand, I
feel quite in place. Scrubbing, cleaning, polishing -- that
is something for which you do not need much talent, just a
good supply of elbow grease, b'ezras Hashem. Work
your way through the house, tidy up here, straighten up
there, make those lists, order and plan your time well, and
you are ready to greet Pesach with a smile. It is
straightforward, dependable me against the Pesach monster.
True, it took some years until I managed to tame it, and
those first years of Pesach making still bring back some
nasty memories. But by now, I have become a pro and the
Pesach beast and me get along quite well. All around the
year, I smile at him once in a while, as I sternly forbid
any member of the household to eat over a sefer or
novel. And I can hear him smirking from within the Pesach
cupboard where he hides all year long as I proudly inform my
guests that please, no chometz allowed upstairs at
any time. Comes January and with a bang, the beast is let
loose. With great strides, he storms up the stairs, two
steps at a go, and takes up position in the master bedroom.
From there, he glares at me as I dutifully take down the
curtains and vacuum behind the beds, one eye on the wall
calendar to ensure the bedrooms are finished before Rosh
Chodesh Adar.
If all the work is swiftly executed, the monster lets out a
satisfied groan. But watch out if someone is too preoccupied
to pay the beast enough attention! He will make it his
business to make himself felt at all times of the day, and
especially at night, gently prodding and nudging the
conscience of the housewife, focusing the light of his
flashlight at the cobwebs on the ceiling and the dust behind
the beds!
Then, for the first two weeks of Adar, the monster takes a
rest, gracefully allowing me to prepare for Purim in style.
He stretches himself out on the carpet and takes a nap,
making sure to turn around noisily every once in a while,
lest his imminent reappearance be forgotten.
Yet, as I struggle with baskets and ribbons, I eye the beast
not without sympathy. At least the beast responds to some
old fashioned green soap and ditto scrunchy! Purim, on the
other hand, is a nightmare for the lefthanded, fantasy
lacking individuals! [Ed. Who says you don't have
imagination!] Especially in this era, where everything has
to be original. Original shalach monos. And
original ways to wrap them up. Original
costumes for the children. Original menus for the
various meals. There are people who just have it in them,
and Purim is the opportunity they are waiting for to let all
their creativity burst forth. But for someone like me, born
without a trace of Hungarian blood, Purim can be a hard
time.
If Pesach takes on the form of a benevolent monster, then
Purim is a wicked witch who shrieks with delight every time
another cake flops, and cackles with glee as I try to
squeeze a mishoach manos into a dainty cardboard box
that just will not yield. As far as the costumes go,
boruch Hashem I am blessed with good neighbors and
relatives. As I circulate the same outfits every year, one
child down, they call on their best acting talents when the
little ones make their appearance on the big day. Admirably,
they pretend that they have never seen anything like it
before -- at least on this particular child -- even if their
affectionate smiles turn a bit wan. But the mishloach
monos are not as simple an affair. Forgetting about
delicate pralines and petit fours, even if the contents are
bought, they still have to look presentable. I vividly
remember my father making the rounds some 35 years ago with
two cartons in his car boot. One box contained bottles of
wine, the second, cans of fruit. As he arrived at each
address, he would extract one of each from their resting
places, and each hand holding one half mishloach
mona, he would enter the house. Beaming with Purim
spirit.
Try doing that today and one would probably be
excommunicated. Today we spend almost as much on the
presentation as on the gifts themselves. Never mind that all
the glitter and cellophane will eventually disappear without
a trace; the witch demands her share! So we have come to a
compromise, the Purim witch and I. As she chortles at me, I
just laugh back. Never mind if my kids look rather prosaic,
the packages so very ordinary and their contents identicial
to last year's offering. For consolation, I just turn to the
friendly monster snoring in the corner, and he will lazily
open an eye and give me a wink.
Which just gives me an idea. Perhaps next year I'll dress up
one child as a Pesach monster and the other as a Purim
witch. That might be original after all.
