The Smartest Woman I Know Read Online Free PDF Page A

isn’t about cleaning the house.
    “It isn’t about finding enough chairs or enough glasses.
    “It isn’t about the shopping.
    “It isn’t even about the cooking.
    “It’s about how to keep everything hot when you’ve only got a small oven.”

    Every Passover, Mr. Goldberg complained that the brisket was too dry and there wasn’t enough of it, the chicken didn’t have enough dark meat, the chicken soup was too salty, the matzah balls weren’t fluffy enough, the chicken liver gave him heartburn, and next year,
he’d
make the
charosis
so it would come out right.
    So you listening, God? Boils, blood, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, hail, locusts, darkness, slaying the firstborn—that’s nothing compared to what I go through in a week with Mr. Goldberg.

    One year, Ettie wanted to buy a new hat for Rosh Hashanah. “Not like I don’t have a hat, but Mrs. Schneiderman who sits next to me at the temple, her son is already a doctor, might think I have only one hat. She has a hat with a big feather. I want a hat with a bigger feather.”
    So Ettie decided to go to Klein’s on 14th Street and she asked me to go with her. Klein’s was known for its bargains and Ettie was always trying to save money. Still, we took a taxi down to 14th Street.
    Once we got to Klein’s, we took the escalator up to the third floor. Ettie didn’t go on elevators.
    Why ride up and down in a closet? On the escalator, in case there’s a fire, I can get off in a hurry.

    Ettie avoided saleswomen. “Saleswomen get commissions on what they sell,” she told me by way of instruction, “so they try to sell me a lot of expensive
shmattes
. I have nothing against a woman should make a living, but not from me.”
    As soon as we reached the floor where they sold ladies’ hats, a saleswoman asked Ettie if she needed any help. “No, thank you,” Ettie said. “I’m just looking. I’m not buying anything today. Thank you very much but no thank you. I’m just looking and I don’t even know what I’m looking for. But by the way, should you know where the black hats with big feathers are, you might point me in that direction.”
    We walked to the corner section where they had ladies’ hats. Ettie picked up a hat, looked at the tag, and said, “Who can afford this? Mrs. Rockefeller, maybe. Maybe I should call Mr. Goldberg’s cousin Morris. His son sells mattresses in the garment district. Maybe he could get me with a big feather wholesale?”
    I reminded Ettie that Mr. Goldberg and Morris hadn’t spoken in years.
    “Maybe it’s about time,” she answered.

    Purim was no big
megillah
for Ettie. “Any Jewish holiday when you don’t you cry or starve isn’t worth fussing over,” she told me.
    Every December, the store was decked out with Christmas ornaments and boxes and boxes of Christmas cards. One small shelf in the back of the store held about six Chanukah cards.
    The spelling of
Chanukah
was a continuous battle between Ettie and Mr. Goldberg for they needed a small sign. Ettie spelled it Hanuka. Mr.Goldberg spelled it Chanukah.
    One day, Mr. Goldberg insisted. “I’m right,” he said. “It’s written Challah, not hallah, so, once again, I am right.”

Ettie believed in tradition. Every Hanuka she said the same things:
    1. Don’t eat the chocolate Hanuka gelt all at once, you’ll get constipated.
    2. Eat the latkes while they’re hot, but don’t eat too many, you’ll get diarrhea.
    3. Not so much sugar, your teeth will fall out.
    4. Eat, eat. There are children starving in Europe.
     
    Every time Ettie heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” on the radio, she muttered, “Irving Berlin, a Jew, wrote that song. So what would have been so terrible if he’d dreamed about a white Hanuka, instead?”
    Let me tell you something, Bing Crosby is no Al Jolson.

    Sukkot Ettie completely ignored.
    Thank you, God, for a holiday so beautiful, but on Madison Avenue nobody puts up a sukkah.
Lulav
, they don’t sell in