Being Jewish, I come from a long line of folks who’ve had to pick up and flee, times without number, over the past 5,000 years. So you’d think I might have some ability in that direction.
But you’d be wrong. If the continued survival of my people depends on me, we are all in trouble.
After Hurricane Sandy, I now read the list of what to pack for an emergency. But it’s hard to follow.
For example: “Essentials Only.”
That means my purse, of course, and our wedding pictures, and the albums from each bar mitzvah. But it better mean chocolate bars, too, or I’m not going. And a deck of cards, because the bloody phone never lets you cheat at solitaire. All the useless things they support, and they can’t have an app for that?
“Toiletries.” This could mean anything, from a toothbrush to my shampoo for color-treated hair. Just because a girl’s been flooded out of her home, why should her hair go gray?
And a hair-dryer. My personal low, during Sandy, came after taking a hot shower in our otherwise freezing house. It’s just humiliating to make all the teens charging their iPods in the library lobby move over so you can dry your graying hair.
“Important Documents.” If we’re truly flooded out, I’ll be glad I packed our original wedding license, birth certificates and insurance, in a zip-lock, in our Go-Bag near the door. But until then, do I really want our most vital papers being tripped over, several times a day, every day, for years?
Besides, I am not quite the person for “Important Documents.” My husband was almost fired, a few years ago, because I couldn’t find his diploma. The Personnel department was doing background checks, and asked for proof of his degree. His school had somehow misplaced his records, so our future was in my hands.
Unfortunately, the more important something is, the more irrevocably I will bury it. If you tell me, “Put this valuable widget somewhere safe,” you can be sure it will never again see the light of day. You could torture me, and the location would still be safe, because I myself would retain no memory of where I had put it.
I was pretty sure his diploma was in the attic; but there was so much else up there with it, I’d need a moving crew to find it. Luckily, the school finally came through, and my husband was graciously allowed to keep his job.
Years later, repainting the upstairs bedrooms, my husband came across a box on a closet shelf.
“The back of the top shelf of the linen closet? Who in their right mind puts a diploma there?”
“So that’s where I put it!”
“But Judy – just tell me, why?”
“Well, it’s the box, you see. It’s acid-free, and this shelf is the only place where it would fit, without getting dusty.”
Finally, there is a syndrome my husband calls “Deadly Bounce-Back.”
He claims that whenever I leave the house, the odds are good I’ll return shortly, for something I forgot: my glasses; my phone; the car keys. If he isn’t leaving with me, he usually stations himself where I can see him, silently mocking me, when I duck back in for whatever it was.
But it’s a bald-faced lie. I never forget my keys. In fact, I have a policy: I do not allow the door to swing shut behind me unless the keys are in my hand. Glasses, however, and phone? Well, I’m only human.
Imagine if I were Lot’s wife, in biblical Sodom. “Escape for thy life,” the angels would tell us. “Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be swept away.”
“But you don’t understand,” I would cry. “I left the family spice-box somewhere in the kitchen. You know Lot, he won’t touch dinner without his spices.” And I run back into the house, where God is mixing up the fire and brimstone to rain down upon our neighbors.
“What are you doing here?” He thunders at me. “Did I not, in my infinite mercy, give thee time to get away?”
“I know, but I forgot something. I’ll just be a minute.” And I start rummaging on the shelf above the stove. “I know it’s here somewhere.”
“SILENCE, woman!” commands the Lord of Heaven. “YOU WANT SALT? I’LL GIVE YOU SALT!”
It’s a good thing I’m only dealing with hurricanes and floods.
