Fiction: Chanukah Clash

S ome people are vaguely familiar with Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law? Hmm. Rings a bell. Maybe something we learned in the lower elementary grades when we went through adages.… Why should they be familiar with an epigram that doesn’t apply to them? They’re from the people who drop their peanut butter sandwiches right-side up or rather don’t drop them at all.

They’re from the people who never have their grocery bags tear especially not when they’re balancing two handfuls of groceries and it’s the bag that embraces a container of cherry tomatoes that tears and the container unfastens and before you know it there are tomatoes scurrying in all directions: some beneath driving cars and others under stomping feet squirting a seed straight into your eye and when you bend down to retrieve the tomatoes the watermelon you’re carrying in the other hand slips to the floor and cracks. No they’re not from this planet of people. But ask me about Murphy’s Law and I’ll answer you loud boisterously and confidently: Murphy’s Law is if anything can go wrong it will!

The Swiffer was swishing with intensity over the smear of peanut butter (from a sandwich that fell right-side down of course and I was in a rush to clean the mess before Mom came home) while the phone was cradled between my ears and shoulder as Faigy the closest cousin my age from the Rosner side of the family was filling me in on her Chanukah plans. “My family is thinking of coming to America for Chanukah and we’re considering spending a few days in New York with you!” she was saying.

“You’re staying by me! Are you?” I was saying rather than questioning. I knew I had full permission to invite Faigy to sleep at our house. She’s from Vienna and is like my sister on her New York trips.