things that make you cringe

Friday the 13th. We have a slew of horror films being shown on all the movie stations here. But those things don't give me the horrors. Other things do.

Like when my Eldest Daughter spoke to me first thing this morning.

"Mom, why is your neck wrinkled?"

"Honey, I'm pushing nearly half a century. That's what happens as you near 100."

She looked mortified as if she was seeing me turn into Ms. Werewolf herself.

But we all take turns making each other cringe every now and then. Like today when Hubby took 3 of the kids to go shopping at our corner grocery store. He took a banana and started eating it and absentmindedly started scratching his underarms.

The local Israeli brat kids - about a gang of 4 around the ages of 5 to 8 - crowded around him pointing

"There's a monkey. That's a monkey man! Monkey man. Bald monkey man!!"

They were wild with glee.

My kids were like - er, we never saw this man before in our life. The were in fact absolutely cringing.

Even big Harley tattooed bikers cringe.

Yesterday I crashed my biker hairdresser's barbecue. He had other bikers there - one more tattooed than the rest. The most tattoed one is the head of a bike club - or as I know it from the States - a "gang". He seemed not to have found his niche in this country. So what are the gang members like?

He bellowed - "they want to stop and go into this coffee shop and get an Expresso. An Expresso!!! I mean why don't they just go and listen to fucking Abba music, for Christ's sake. Yeah, man, I'm gonna go and get a fucking Espresso? Like I wanna hang with you?"

No beer-guzzling bikers in the Middle East, unfortunately for him. He'll take a double espresso.

My Complainer Kid went with us yesterday and was appalled by the crowd.

"Americans. Full of them. And they all spoke English! And your friend... why doesn't she get married. Doesn't she know when she gets old she'll be all alone?"

And she looked at me like I'm the one responsible for my girlfriends' singlehoodness.

And the last time I remember cringing myself was when I went to the dentist this past week and he was talking about buying lox in 18 different flavors. The store he went into was in the "schvartza" neighborhood in LA, he told me. I took a look at his Ethiopian dental assistant and wondered if she knew what the word "schvartza" meant. (A yiddish term for black person - not as derogatory as the "N" word, but not politically correct.) I didn't react to his comments. Maybe she didn't understand Yiddish terms. I prayed she didn't. I really don't want to get the dental assistant upset and have her give the wrong stuff to the dentist to put into my mouth.

Happy Friday the 13th....Mwaaaaa haaa haaa