Part 4

November 16, 2006

To my dearest, beloved, and most cherished of friends:

Re: My move on up to the Richside.

In the first place, I want to let you know that I am deeply disappointed in your ignorant assumptions about both me and Mr. Richman. Not only has your hair grown grey from envy, but may your lips too shrivel up like last year’s prunes, and may your hips explode past size 12, and I do sincerely wish you all a husband with flat feet and a small nose, and yes, I meant to say husband in the singular because I wish you all to share just one (like our foremother, Rachel and her sister wives), and even such a man is still too good for the likes of you.

And in the second place, I wish to inform you that my new address is:

777 Richesthouseontheblock, Millionaire Lane, Fat City.

Please forward all your replies and letters of good will and fine intention to the above-mentioned address.

Furthermore, despite your ill luck and well-deserved bad teeth, I wish you all a happy Monday mid-afternoon, which is the day and time that you will probably read this letter, since neither of you have any work to go to, and you are both too lazy to clean your homes or wash your dishes on a perfectly fine weekday afternoon.

May we all wake up goyish men the day after tomorrow!

Hugs and kisses to you all,

Mycelle

***

But to make a long story short, much like Sarah when she wandered in the Abu Dhabi desert for forty years, I left that very morning, with my backpack, my tent, my kitchenware, my wool jacket, my carpet, my cards, my letter, and my tea strapped to my back, and hung from my waist off a belt I fashioned from a rope, and I started walking toward Mr. Richman’s.

Now, Natashinka, as you sit on this cement slab beside the bars I am behind, you may wonder what an upstanding Jewish yenta, Mycelle, is doing in jail instead of at Richestmanontheblock’s place? Well, that’s a story for another time, but suffice to say that it all started with my two-foot salami.

You see, my dear, I had walked for a good three blocks toward Mr. Richman’s and only had eight thousand and three blocks to go when I got tired and hungry, and so I sat down on the side of the road and pulled out my two-foot salami to snack on for comfort and strength. Even the Torah says that a woman must eat large kosher salamis to stay strong for long walks! And we Jews know how to long walk – look at the forty years we followed King Solomon throughout the desert! I’m no learned woman, Natashinka, not like King Solomon, but I know the stories of our Torah! Where would I be, if I didn’t know our Torah? Oh, but I’m just an old Jewish woman – what do I know!

So, to make a long story short, there I was, on the side of the road with my two-foot salami, Ha Shem bless my soul, when who comes prancing up to me but Amicable Amy! Amicable Amy sees my two-foot salami and she just licks her lips and jumps right for my Salami! Amicable Amy just can’t stay away from a good, long Salami. Did you know, Natashinka – and of course you wouldn’t know, but I will tell you so now you will know, it is well-known in our apartment building – that as sure as the cockroaches eat all our butter and the mice scurry over our cold feet at night, Amicable Amy has had a taste of every salami in our whole place! They say, and Natashinka, this is a very well-kept secret so only tell people you don’t like, that if Amicable Amy’s husband, Smarty Joe, could count from three to six, he would have left her long ago over the number of salamis that she’s tasted that were never hers to touch in the first place! Oh, what do you I know? I’m just an old Jewish woman! Ah, but where was I, Natashinka?