By:A Mom in need of a break

PART 1: Phone call with son in out-of-town Yeshiva

Mother: Hiiiiiiiiii! So nice to hear from you!

Son: (smiles silently)

Mother: How are you? How’s yeshiva? How’s your cold? Better? You took the Vitamin C I sent you?

Son: Yeah.

Mother: Great. How was Shabbos?

Son: Good.

Mother: Anything special happen in  yeshiva this week?

Son: (thinks silently) Not really.

Mother: Any highlights of the week?

Son: Nnnope. A regular week.

Mother: Everything’s going well?

Son: Yes. Boruch Hashem.

Mother: You need anything?

Son: No, I have everything I need, Boruch Hashem.

Mother: Great! Always sameach b’chelko!

Son: (to a crazy guy yelling in the background) I’m getting off in a second!!!

Mother: Oy, is that guy okay?

Son: (to crazy guy) Hello? It’s my mother. One minute!

Mother: Okay, I better let you go before that guy-

Son: Sorry, Ima.

Mother: No problem. Can’t wait to see you  in… how long?

Son: I was just home last Shabbos, so, like…

Mother: A month. No, two months. (sigh) I’m already counting the –

Son: (to crazy guy) I heard you. Just saying goodbye to my —

CLICK! Phone call ends.

Part 2:  Phone call with daughter in Israel

Mother: Hiiiiiiiiii! So nice to hear from you!

Daughter: Oh my goodness, Mom, you can’t imagine what happened this past Shabbos. Me and a friend, Sarah Applestien, you don’t know her, she’s not from Toronto, so me & Sarah went to this random family near Gaza –

Mother: Gaza?!

Daughter: Yeah. We were sitting next to these two chayalim –

Mother: Chayalim? Where?

Daughter: On the bus with bullet-proof windows, so anyway me & Sarah were sitting on the bus and who do we meet? Remember  Chaya’le Gordonberg from our old neighborhood?

Mother: Sure! How’s she –

Daughter: So not her, but her sister Dina is in sem now, and she was on the bus with, guess who?

Mother: Who?

Daughter: Morah Kennsky! Turns out, they were both going to a hospital near Gaza to-

Mother: A hospital??

Daughter: Yeah, to visit a different girl there who got attacked there and was driven to the nearest hospital, so we said, do you have balloons? And they said no, but they had –

Mother: Why on earth is everyone traveling to all these dangerous –

Daughter: We said the whole tehillim seven times before we left, don’t worry, Hashem protects, so in the end we decided to go along with them to visit that girl who was attacked, she was a mess, but we cheered her up, and then –

Mother: I’m pretty confused.

Daughter: I’ll explain everything. So on Shabbos, at this random Chabad family, one of the guests, in the middle of the meal, just pulls off his hat & payos & starts screaming Allah! At first, I was like, “He wants challah! Someone give him challah!”

Mother: Allah has nothing to do with challah!

Daughter: I know, because suddenly everyone was chasing him out of the house, so then we sat back down and —

Mother: Does your menaheles know where you went for Shabbos?

Daughter: No, sem is closed for now, remember?

Mother: Oh my goodness, I feel weak. I hope this story is almost over.

Daughter: Why? It was such an adventure! So the host locked all the doors, but then, during

benching, the guy climbs in through a window, and–

Mother: I can’t, my heart, please, honey, just tell me one thing. Did you get the package I sent with Tante Suri? The shampoo, and the Skippy  peanut butter?

Daughter: Of course! I actually had it with me over Shabbos, so I ran to the guest room, grabbed

the jar of peanut butter, threw at the guy’s head, and —

Mother: Whaaaaat?? You? As in…you?

Daughter: (giggles) You raised us to have courage, Mom.

Mother: Just tell me, where is that Arab now. Like, as we speak.

Daughter: They took him out on a stretcher!

Mother: Wait a second, you knocked him out?! With Skippy peanut butter?

Daughter: I did. But listen, I only get one phone call here….where I am now, so…bye! Love ya!

Mother: (faints)

POSTSCRIPT:

I am sure you will not be surprised to hear that after that “adventure”, and my subsequent self-resuscitation,  I desperately needed to relax my mind. Of course, I chose my favorite get-away spot: a Lakewood Hosts Kosher Vacation Rentals villa.

While recuperating here, I learned that my daughter was released that day, based on cluelessness (she thinks Allah is bread!). We also brought  her  home on the next plane since seminary is closed indefinitely at this point.

I love, love, love the kitchen here at my Lakewood Hosts Kosher Vacation Rentals villa, but the first thing I did, of course, was dump the Skippy peanut butter!

My son is doing well in yeshiva, Boruch Hashem, but my daughter can’t wait to tell him how she spent half a day at the police station. Anyway, they’re both home for Shabbos together (my husband’s home, don’t worry) but I’m staying here at my serene and peaceful Lakewood Hosts

Kosher Vacation Rentals until I have completely forgotten all about that crazy incident.

Who’s paying for my extended stay, you ask? The seminary refunded us the last months of the school year, it’s all good.