Rent-a-Bochur
| March 29, 2017
GET RICH QUICK “Are you kidding?” I waved some papers in Manny’s face. “We’re going to be rich man. We’re going to hire other guys to do the actual cleaning and we can market an original line of Pesach prep products— spray bottles of Davar HaPosel and Suspender Sacks—”
F irst day of bein hazmanim my mother was already anxious about my room. “I’m cleaning” I said. I pointed to the garbage bags piled against the wall.
Her eyes traveled around the room from the dumped-out drawers to the piles of Stuff. “Doesn’t look very clean to me ” she said in her watch-me-model-staying-calm voice.
Mothers take cleaning so seriously. Seriously.
“Cleaning makes a mess. Like it gets worse before it gets better. That type of thing.”
“Dovi ” she said warningly.
“The halachah is—”
“The halachah is that you have to listen to your mother!”
As soon as I could I escaped to Manny’s house. He was doing the same thing as me. His mother was doing the same thing as my mother.
“Oh hi Dovi ” she said in her own stay-calm voice. “I don’t know if Manny’s available right now.” She looked pointedly at Manny.
Manny looked surprised. “I’m not?”
“Manny Pesach is in two weeks.”
“Exactly!”
Manny’s mother closed her eyes briefly. “What’s all that Stuff?”
“What Stuff?” Manny followed his mother’s gaze. “Oh that. Well it’s not chometz. That’s the main thing. Right?”
When she left the room Manny shook his head. “What is it with these mothers?”
“It’s the stress ” I explained authoritatively. I had thought about this a lot on the way over. “Their brains release cortisol and it puts them into fight-or-flight mode.”
“Flight sounds good to me. Like a flight to Disneyland.”
“Maybe for Chol Hamoed ” I said. “Hey Manny!”
Manny looked wary. “What?”
“We should open a Pesach-cleaning service. To help all these overworked stressed-out mothers!”
“It would be so hard for my husband to go through a whole meal without learning so I bought him a Pesach Shas…”
“A Pesach Shas?!”
Manny looked at me like I was crazy. “You mean in addition to our own overworked stressed-out mothers?”
“No seriously!” My mind lit up with a thousand ideas. “Rent-a-Bochur. That’s what we’ll call ourselves. I’ll make us T-shirts. We’ll make millions!”
“By testimony of our own mothers neither of us knows how to clean.”
He had a point. “So it can be a reconnaissance mission. Market research. We can do information gathering. Operation How to Clean for Pesach. It’s gonna be great. Believe me.”
Manny groaned. “Do me a favor Dovi. You want to clean you can start right here.”
I picked up Manny at 9 a.m. “What’s that in your pocket?”
“A notepad.”
“For what?”
“To take notes. What else?”
I decided not to press the matter.
When we got to the Feinzeigs’ Manny made me ring the bell. “This was your idea ” he said.
“It’s not like they’re going to know who pressed the bell.”
“Exactly so you do it.”
I rang the bell. There was a box of latex gloves on the ledge near the door. I stared at it. It was just a box someone had left here by mistake I assured myself. It couldn’t be… (Excerpted from Family First Issue 536)
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