Build-a-bear Schmooie

A few nights ago, I went to synagogue for Friday night services. (I’m still amazed that this suburb finally got itself a synagogue and now I don’t have to schlep over to the heart of town to worship during the New Year or during the random Friday nights that I decide to go.) I hadn’t been there in almost two years seeing as I was living in Mississippi. The peeps there actually remembered me. Ah, I felt the love in the room. Not to mention the food served after services that night was impeccable: veggie soup, homemade gefilte fish (you haven’t lived till you’ve gefilted a fish, trust me it’s a labor of love); and an assortment of salads all homemade. I chatted with the rabbi and his wife and various ladies of the congregation. The men were all older as expected. Most young people don’t come for Shabbot (aka Sabbath) services unless it’s a special occasion or the Jewish New Year, just like Christians who don’t go to Sunday service unless they feel like it, the lady in their life forces them to, or unless it’s a holy time of year.

I talked to a really cool lady who’s done a lot of traveling and sounded like a former hippie. I love hippies! Yet, she smiled at me with a possible ulterior motive. She told me she wished her son had come that night, but he had had a long day doing volunteer work and she couldn’t drag him out of bed. She was worried he might become a Mama’s Boy because he seemed to be extremely shy around girls. Apparently, they went to a basket ball game and when he was offered the chance to have his photo taken with the cheerleading team, he got scared and said no. She hoped I could meet him sometime because “he needs someone like you to break him out of his shell.” He’s much younger than me, but I didn’t tell her that. I was flattered, but I also knew better. He’s not the first young’un I’ve encountered, and I’ll write about those experiences in future blog posts (I will one day be a cougar, hello Mrs. Robinson). He’s also not the first manboy I’ve been told I should be the girl to fix (future blog posts to come on that note too). Incidentally, a “manboy” is not a boy who’s too young, it’s a man who’s too immature or lame to truly be considered a man at any age.

Later that night, I finally sat through a long-winding film starring Sarah Jessica Parker called, “Failure to Launch.” Perhaps her character in that film was on to something. Maybe I should do what Sarah Jessica Parker did in the film and start my own business where I’m hired by friends, family, or coworkers to make a manboy palatable and more pleasing to other ladies. Perhaps this may be some sort of lucrative market I should be jumping into? Afterall, I’ve got a skill and I should use it. Sure, you can’t fix someone, but that’s never stopped anyone from making me try. Maybe the key to finding Schmooie is to build him myself. Schmooie may not be that different than a bear in a build-a-bear workshop!