T

he next morning, on my way home from carpool, I have an itch to Instacart again. I’m picky, waiting until I see one that fits my criteria — mainly not too far and not too big — before accepting Maureene’s order from Hollywood Market. The Instacart chat pops up soon after.

“Hi, I’m recovering from  surgery, can you bring the items to the door?” she types.

“Is this order going to an apartment building?” I respond, wondering what options there are for delivery, aside from bringing the items to the front door.

“Single family home, I promise I’m safe,” the message reads. I don’t know, wouldn’t an unsafe person lure you in with promises of safety? I decide to take the gamble. Hollywood Market, here we come!

I grab a cart and walk up and down the aisles, getting her long list of randomly specific items (“maple Dijon turkey from the deli counter, cut butcher’s cut in thickness”), bag it the way she specifies (“plastic bag in a brown bag”), and leave the bags right outside her door, feeling very virtuous.

The issue is that Instacart times every aspect of your shop. I’m timed to collect and tick and scan each item. I’m timed when I checkout. I’m timed when I deliver the order. So when I accept an order in Hollywood Market, a boujie supermarket I would love to peruse, I can barely allow myself a moment to see if the beautiful jar of jam I spot has a hechsher — because my average time per item will increase! I know, Instacart shopping isn’t my new career path, so who cares if I rank low on timing? Me, apparently, because even though it doesn’t really matter, I can’t rein in my competitiveness, and I hustle my way out of there.

One thing I notice — I check the app pretty frequently — is that most orders come in during the evening, between five and nine p.m., whereas during the day, it can be silent for hours on end. Maybe I should be planning my own orders for daytime so shoppers have more patience?

MY

next order is a killer. It consists of four gallons of milk and four 7-lb bags of ice (what are they making? Flavorless smoothies for 100?), and it is from Meijer to Sur la Table, in the mall.

I hustle to checkout, weighty plastic bags ripping as I shlepp them into my minivan.

This is too much to carry at once — what was I even thinking?!

Just as I decide to split the order in half and leave the ice bags at the mall entrance — they’ll be fine until I come back, right? — a security guard passes by.

“Hey, Can I leave a few bags of ice here for a minute?” I ask as I keep walking.

“Sure, I’ll make sure no one touches them.”

Thank you, Hashem, for small miracles!

I step off the escalator, spot Sur la Table, and walk toward the door. It’s locked. I guess they’re just opening, it’s only 10 a.m., so I decide to leave this here and run and get the rest. Then a Sur La Table staff member catches my eye as she unlocks the door.

“I’m running to get the ice, I left it downstairs,” I blurt. I’m panting.

When I come back — up a flight of stairs, with stores like Gucci and Tiffany and Ferragamo all around me — the Sur La Table lady says, “You didn’t have to carry those — next time, come get a cart!”

“So actually, I’m not really an Instacart shopper,” I feel compelled to explain hastily. “I’m doing this as a writing assignment…” I trail off.

She doesn’t care. Oops, noted. We’re both here to do our jobs, not make friends, and I stammer a quick goodbye before fleeing. I forget to take a picture of the order.

And with that, I’m done, retired from my side hustle as an Instacart shopper.

I’ve gotten a glimpse into the shoppers’ experience, and I know the answers to things I used to wonder about: How bad should I feel about adding an item halfway through shopping? (Bad if it’s a big store and they’re just about done.) How much do I need to tip? (Ideally in the 15 percent range, and no less than two dollars, regardless of the order.) Should I post-tip? (Yes, if the shopper went out of his way to do me a favor — and put that in the thank you note!)

I did three orders total, on three different days. Each one took about 45 minutes start to finish, not great for about $12 per order — which included a one to two dollar tip and the Instacart sign up promotion of five dollars for your first three orders — but more than the money I made, I learned what being a shopper actually entails, which was so interesting because I rely so heavily on Instacart.

Now I’m much more conscious when I make a big Instacart order. I try to plan my orders for daytime, and I leave nice thank you notes. If I get a good vibe from a shopper, I send one of my kids outside with a cold Snapple or Coke. I never realized what a long way that goes, but now I know, and I’m softening a bit about closing my blinds when an order is on its way — something I used to always do — because I remember how awkward I felt dropping orders off.

Being an Instacart shopper reminded me that nothing good comes from canceling a flower order, that a little human connection always helps, and that, most important, when someone is clear across the store and nearing checkout, you should never add “just one more thing” to their list.

Aircraft Mechanic for a Day 

Yitzchok Landa

The inside of the engine is even more intimidating than the outside

Nothing drains your confidence quite like the opening volley of conversation from an aircraft mechanic.

“We’re gonna are-square the static wick,” the young man in overalls said. “It was inop but melled for a while, but this hunka junk is placarded now, so… yeah.”

My brief job assignment seemed simple enough: provide moral support to airplane mechanics. All it entailed was learning their particular flavor of shop talk, and I could look forward to productive, enriching conversations. I figured it may take a while to learn the names of some of the more obscure parts, but hey, fake it till you make it, right?

And then I realized I couldn’t even tell a verb from a noun. So I nodded sagely.

“Yes, you do that. Go ahead and… be square?” I trailed off uncertainly.

A kind-looking older fellow, monkey wrench balanced cheerfully on his shoulder, took pity on me.

“R-square,” he explained. “As in, R². Two Rs. For ‘Remove and Replace.’”

They couldn’t just say, “Replace?” This was going to be harder than I thought.

Y

ou don’t quite realize how enormous an airliner is until you see one indoors.

I spent some time walking among aircraft parked on the ramp (that just means an airplane parking lot; it’s flat, I don’t know why it’s called that), but it didn’t prepare me for seeing one in a hangar for the first time.

Entering the building is like walking into an enormous cavern, one massive room that towers seven to eight stories tall and is completely empty inside — aside from the aircraft and the large array of boom trucks, scissor lifts, bucket trucks, and other equipment that allows the workers to reach great heights. Up to three aircraft fit inside this hangar at a time. The techs, field coordinators, managers, and sups — it could be as many as 100 people all at work maintaining the aircraft parked in the hangar — are mere specks as they move among the 767s and C-17s.

Standing under the tail of a Boeing 767, there are at least seven feet of space between my head and the bottom of the plane’s body, which extends to a height of over 50 feet at the tip of the tail. It’s astonishing that this thing can move, let alone fly.

A cluster of maintainers are opening the cowling on an engine. They show me how to undo the latch holding it closed; there are seven steps just to unlock it. I quickly give up trying to remember the names of each doohickie, dongle, and chupchik, and decide to try my hand at unlocking it — whatever it is — but it’s no use. I’m afraid to push too hard and break something, and I can’t remember all the steps, anyway. The engine covers themselves are far too heavy to lift; the workers connect a hydraulic pump and use a machine to hold it open.

The inside of the engine is even more intimidating than the outside. Thousands of pipes, cylinders, and wires crisscross each other, running endlessly in different directions.

I turn to the foreman.

“There’s no way you know what everything here does,” I say.

He shrugs.

“It’s actually pretty simple,” he says mildly. “An engine is just a giant furnace, superheating gasses that push and turn this big fan. The fan blows air out the back, pushing the aircraft forward. Nothing to it.”

Yeah. Simple.

Under a wing, a crew is changing a tire. That would be a routine fix, except that the new tire weighs hundreds of pounds. It’s inflated to almost 200 PSI, almost seven times the air pressure in your car tires. There’s a hydraulic cart designed to hold it and lever it into place, but it doesn’t line up precisely, so the lug nuts won’t go on. I watch the techs struggle with it for a bit, grateful that I don’t work in wheel and tire.

One of the mechanics is wielding a big wrench to tighten the lug nuts. A really big wrench. The bar is over six feet long. A digital screen on the tool will tell him exactly how much torque is applied to the screw; his instructional manual tells him precisely how tight is tight enough without breaking it.

Over at another jet, a team is preparing to climb to the top of the tail, which has been struck by lightning, to inspect the damage. The hangar has catwalks along the top and drones that can fly above the planes to take a good look, but they’ve decided to send an actual person up there. There are stairs inside the tail section of the aircraft, and the maintainer, outfitted in a mountain climber’s harness to catch him in case he slips, will climb over 60 steps to the top of the tail to inspect the damaged elevator.

“If it’s bad, it’ll be a hangar queen and they’ll use it for canning,” one of them comments.

At this point, I know that a hangar queen is exactly the type of matronly, finnicky aircraft that it sounds like, lazing around indoors while the others are out working. And “canning”? What good’s a slanguage if it doesn’t have a word for “cannibalize”?

I visit with some workers preparing to install something in the bottom of a C-17. The ground clearance on this plane’s underbelly is only a few feet, so they have to crawl beneath it. They point out a hatch in the bottom where I can stand, half inside the aircraft below the cargo hold. Steel pillars frame a long tunnel that runs from nose to loading ramp, and they show me how to lie down on a little cart set in a track in the tunnel. I do so, and off I go, whizzing down this chute deep into the recesses of the plane’s underframing. There isn’t really any space to maneuver, but this is where they will install the new part.

I reach the end, but I can’t turn around, so I sort of slide and shimmy backward to get to the opening and exit the plane. This is definitely not for the claustrophobic.

As I walk away, I chat with a passing maintainer, who identifies himself as ELEN. I’m about to hum a ditty from Country Yossi’s “A Boy Named Zlateh,” when he clarifies.

“Not my name,” he says. “My job. ELectric and ENvironmental.”

I leave the hangar and head out to the ramp, where maintainers will work long shifts, up to 12 hours, out in the elements, exposed to the weather. On a flightline — the general term for ramp and runways — there is no shelter from the wind, rain, or sun, and in the winter, they may stand in freezing sideways rain for what feels like forever.

As I’m walking toward a plane parked off to one side, a tech working on a cart with hoses connected to it spots me. He begins waving his arms excitedly, jumping and shouting. I’m too far to hear him over the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit, a small jet engine that provides electrical power when the main engines are off) but I guess he’s excited to see me. Eventually, I realize he’s warning me not to come any closer, so I stop. After a few minutes, he approaches.

“Sorry,” he offers by way of explanation. “I had the lox cart out there.”

Have I just been bageled?

He sees my expression.

“LOX. Liquid oxygen. It’s super-flammable, a tiny leak or static spark can blow up the jet. You can’t come close while it’s filling the tank.”

Oh.

I’m not excited about standing around outside — it’s cold! — so I decide to check what the techs are doing inside the cockpit of a parked C-17. I enter through a short, fold-down staircase. The interior looks like an unfinished Boro Park basement — bare wires, insulation, and pipes strung around the walls and ceiling. I climb the steps to the upper floor, where the pilot’s quarters are located.

Two avionics maintainers are in the pilots’ seats, pushing and pulling at a wall of buttons, switches, and breakers. They explain that they maintain the plane’s software and electronic systems, such as the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), a radar-based system that alerts pilots when other aircraft are too close. Right now, there’s problem with the power source to one side of the jet. To deal with it, they’ll start up the engines and see if they can get power to run from the right engines to the left panels. I watch the engine start-up process; it’s not at all like turning a key in your car, and there is a long list of steps to get them spinning.

When I sit in on a supervisors’ meeting, I’m hoping it will be in actual English. But a few minutes of watching them pore over spreadsheets proudly titled “JAMMIE” (yes, these are adults fully dressed in daytime clothing) and MiDAPS, I give up.

The meeting ends with a report that a crew member had left a screwdriver inside an engine, and the error was caught just before takeoff. The FOD (foreign object, debris) could have brought down the plane. The boss, a soft-spoken cowboy with a charming southern twang, takes this in stride.

“Wahll now,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “This-here job is hard enough fixin’ what’s broke. What say we try’n do it without shootin’ off our own toes?”

Back out on the ramp, a flight engineer is getting set to launch a plane. I stand near him; as the engines on the jet wind up, we put on ear protection. There are two layers — the foam ear plugs, and those giant earmuffs you see at the airport. The engines turn faster and faster as their whine increases to a feverish pitch, and even with all the protection, it’s too loud to allow menial tasks, like thinking. The marshallers wave their lit batons at the cockpit, and the giant behemoth begins to move.

It turns and heads to the runway, lining up on the painted stripes where it seems to gather itself before racing forward and leaping into the sky.

For these maintainers, it’s the end of a job; for the aircrew, the long trip is just beginning.

And for me? It’s a lot learned about a world I never considered; I just assumed planes fly rather routinely. Many questions have been answered (yes, there is duct tape and WD-40 involved), and I’ll forever have respect for the intense pressure, responsibility, physical labor, and wealth of technical data these workers must master as they focus on their simple goal, an oft-repeated mantra: “Make sure there are as many landings as there are takeoffs.”

Realtor for a Day

Sarah Massry

Who knew bedrooms were such a game-changer?

When I signed up to be a realtor for a day, I didn’t realize it meant sitting. In a café. Eating.

My friend Shifra is a top-selling Lakewood realtor, and she often shares stories of the dynamic, nuanced, and sometimes wild Lakewood real estate scene. I join her on the job one day this winter, and we start, as one does, by working at a table in a bustling Lakewood café. I sip my latte, and Shifra and I greet everyone who walks by (realtors know a lot of people, it seems).

I’m wondering what exactly realtors do when Shifra pulls out her work phone and reads, “An investor from Brooklyn — I’ve already sold him six houses in Lakewood — is looking for a nice property.” She looks up at me and elaborates. “It’s actually for himself this time, to use for weekends. He wants to come see only one house — the house he’ll buy.”

She rattles off the details: large upscale house, great neighborhood outside of Lakewood, and he wants a good deal.

This challenge is right up my alley; I love the thrill of a hunt! Shifra pulls up the New Jersey MLS app on her phone to look at the hot sheet of new deals that have just hit the market.  I begin perusing homes in Howell, Jackson, and Toms River, looking at houses that have hit the market within the past week. We don’t want anything that’s been sitting for too long, she cautions me, because none of them will work for him.

Of course, we have to do some market research about selling prices of recent homes in the area (in layman’s terms: a legit reason to be a yenta). All sold houses are public record, but realtors often do a CMA, comprehensive market analysis, by looking at the most recent sales in the area.

I come across a colonial in Toms River, and I feel a frisson of excitement. I look carefully at the pictures. It’s new construction. The design is bold and different. And the price seems right: 1.3 million dollars.

“Here’s the one!” I announce, quite proud of my find.

But Shifra frowns.

“It’s on a very busy street. He’s coming from the city,” she says. “Nope, not for him.”

Right. Location, location, location and all that. I keep searching. I find a cute house in Howell, on a great block, but it’s too small. Another house in Toms River is nice but the price — more than $2.5 million — is too high. Then we strike gold on an off-market deal in Toms River that was just posted to a different realtor’s status. It’s stunning, and the price is decent, so we shoot off the link to the investor. It doesn’t take long for him to call.

“I like the house, but I’m not sure it has enough bedrooms.” (It has four.)

“Would you like to see it?” Shifra offers.

“I’m coming in for Shabbos, can I see it Friday afternoon?”

She agrees.

“Seriously? Friday afternoon?”  I ask Shifra afterward.

Shifra nods while reviewing the specs of the house. “But I’m not sure the bedroom situation will work. He’s the kind of guy who would put bedrooms in the dining room.”

She explains that many of the Toms River mansions have expansive living space and just a few large bedrooms. They’re gorgeous, but the setup is challenging for large families that host, which is why the number of bedrooms can make or break a deal.

I’m shaking my head. Who knew bedrooms were such a game-changer?

But real estate doesn’t just involve searching for houses while sitting in a café. Soon, we’re heading out to a showing in Howell with a prospective buyer. I’m excited, because that’s what I’m looking forward to the most. There’s something thrilling about the possibilities of a new home!

As we drive through the streets of Howell, I’m struck by the country-like setting.

“Do frum people really live so far out?” I ask.

Shifra laughs. “This is the hot area! Walking distance to Rachmastrivka.”

We drive for another ten minutes and then pull onto a quiet cul-de-sac. There aren’t frum families on this block yet, but many of the houses are owned by Jewish investors. We find the house and punch in the combination. I can’t wait to check it out and share my expert opinion.

But we open the front door, and my heart sinks. Two words come to mind: Gut. Job.

Some of the walls are red, and the shaggy brown carpet smells musty. But that’s not even the problem. It’s the open floor plan with a (rundown) kitchen connected to the dining room, with a laundry room off the dining room too. The setup could never work for a frum family.

I try to think of something nice to say.

“Great sunlight. And gorgeous backyard.”

The buyer’s interest is lackluster, and I’m relieved because Shifra and I don’t like it either.

Once we’re in Howell, we drive around so Shifra can walk me through the landscape. We end up in the Candlewood area — “That’s where the minivans and the bidding wars are,” she narrates — and she shows me the hot areas where the stores and businesses are opening.

We pass a neat colonial house on a serene cul de sac. A sweet elderly couple is sitting outside.

“Wow, if only we can get our hands on that listing!” I say. “Think they want to sell?”

“It’s a nice thought, but I don’t knock on doors,” Shifra says with a laugh. (It’s illegal to knock on doors in Lakewood to ask homeowners if they want to sell.) “A realtor once landed up in court after he knocked on someone’s door in Howell. The judge was not amused, he gave him a fine — but the judge did like his aggressiveness and said he’d call him when he’s ready to sell his own house!”

Our next showing is in Jackson. We’re hoping to do it early in the afternoon, but the buyer isn’t available until later. It’s funny, I always thought a realtor’s job is somewhat flexible — you’re your own boss. Now that I’m in it, I see just how little flexibility there is. In reality, the buyers, sellers, and other agents are your bosses. You have to work around everyone else’s schedules, which is why I am hustling out of my house at a totally inconvenient hour to get to the Jackson showing on time.

When we pull up in Jackson, someone is walking by with a dog on a leash. I glance at Shira. I know she doesn’t like dogs; the last time she ran into one at a showing, it didn’t end well. She was attacked and Hatzalah crashed the showing.

A sweet young couple is waiting for us in the driveway. I hold my breath as we quietly walk into the house and… I smile. It’s actually quite nice: high ceilings, a sleek white kitchen (with a walk-in pantry!), and great windows. There’s even a quaint fireplace in the living room. The couple is hooked — they keep looking at each other and smiling, opening closets and doors, and taking in every detail. I feel myself getting excited. This feels so right for them!

We walk outside to the stunning backyard, where there’s a cool surprise: an old barn, complete with horse stalls.

“Where’s the property line?” the husband asks. (Shifra later tells me this indicates interest.)

On my way home, I’m still thinking about all the moving parts. Will that sweet couple manage to buy the cute Jackson house? What will happen to the house in Howell? Will the Brooklyn investor get the Toms River house for a decent price? Each deal has so many variables; what happens when you invest months into a deal, and it falls through? You need a lot of faith to make it in this field, I realize.

After I get home, Shifra tells me that the couple is very interested in the Jackson home (yay!) and the investor likes our choice (!) but is still concerned about the bedrooms. And later that night, when my cousin mentions that she’s looking to buy a house in Howell, I start thinking about the houses we saw on the MLS site, the neighborhoods, and the house with red walls that she should not buy.

But I don’t say anything. I just smile and give her Shifra’s number. Being a realtor was fun — for a day.

Adjunct Deputy Assistant Junior Counsel for a Day

Jake Turx

Photos: Eli Greengart

So, you guys always start 11 minutes late, or is that just for me?”

IF

you had asked me yesterday what the most dull, dreary, drab profession in the world was, I wouldn’t have hesitated: lawyer. Sure, they make good money, but at what cost? Spending their best years buried in case law, wading through oceans of fine print, debating commas in contracts, and measuring their lives in billable hours. Turns out — well, don’t let me spoil it for you.

8:30 AM: Pro Bono Consultation

A half hour before I start my legal career, I call my mother for advice. She’s positively thrilled that she’ll now get to whip out the my-son-the-lawyer conversation piece. “Listen, Observe, Learn,” she counsels. “LOL.”

9:11 AM: Motion to Dismiss (Tardiness)

Armed with that wisdom, I enter the corporate office building in Washington, D.C. It is across the street from — and in direct view of — the White House, and I am 11 minutes late, a bold strategy for my first day in the legal profession, but one I plan to justify thusly: “I was tied up on a client call.” “What about?” they’ll ask, and I’ll say, “Turx v. Concept of Time.” Clever, no? Or, if brevity requires, I can simply go with, “So, you guys always start 11 minutes late, or is that just for me?” In the end, nobody seems to notice or care.

9:12 AM: Establishing Jurisdiction

I march past the security desk, because I belong here. An elevator shuttles me to the sixth floor, the home of Ifrah Law Firm. I’ve made it!

9:22 AM: Discovery Phase

First order of business? Find a notepad. I locate one, take a seat behind an unoccupied secretary’s desk and try to look as natural as possible. Matthew, one of the paralegals, thinks I’m the new secretary and comes over to brief me on how the phone system works.

10:17 AM: Juris-Brew-Dence

Oh, that’s where they keep the coffee.

10:47 AM: Scheduling Order

I inform Jeff Ifrah, the law firm’s namesake, that I’ve taken the liberty to arrange a meeting for him later in the day. He can’t tell if I’m serious (I am).

12:00 PM: Cross Examination in Progress

I get yanked into my first big-league meeting, with Jeff and a former celebrity who now practices law. They talk shop — current cases, legal current events, news, and of course, before long, politics. Then comes a discussion about a colleague working in government who’s apparently waiting to be canned by Elon Musk any day now.

“Some of these government guys should’ve seen it coming,” remarks paralegal.

“Musk plays by his own rules,” says Mr. Celebrity Lawyer, “except those rules are written in code only he understands.”
“So, like tax law, but with fewer loopholes?” Jeff responds.

Eventually, they get to the real point of the meeting: a venture they’re collaborating on — as a lawyer, I’m bound by confidentiality and can’t divulge what it is — before turning back to other matters of interest. From there, I’m pulled into conversations about major legal battles, including a sports scandal involving a medical staffer for a major sports team betting against his own team whenever he had inside knowledge of a significant injury that wasn’t public.

“I’m surprised they’re not all doing it,” I muse.

Then there’s a case involving the White House versus the White House Correspondents’ Association, a dispute over who gets to decide the White House’s press pool rotations, one with which I’m intimately familiar. These meetings aren’t just about the legal work, I notice, they’re about connections, influence, and knowing which way the wind is blowing.

Next is a high-level meeting with Jim, one of the firm’s partners and a former Department of Justice official, discussing legislation that would strip protections from UNRWA. This turns into a discussion over whether it’s possible for the US to leave the UN altogether.

“Impossible,” paskens the former DOJer, because of certain clauses that are intertwined with other clauses. I’m not convinced.

Later, there’s a Zoom meeting about a major lawsuit involving the Department of Education. At this point, I’ve been parked in the spacious conference room for hours. I’ve completely abandoned my secretary post. Matthew must be very confused.

1:00 PM: Recess

Break for lunch.

1:47 PM: Blanket Approval

I get a call from the security desk informing me of someone’s arrival. I don’t catch the name, so I say, “Yeah, sure, send them up.” I still don’t know whose entry I approved.

3:00 PM: Conflict of Interest

I’m suddenly placed in charge of high-stakes escort operations: two job candidates, both former government officials, are scheduled for back-to-back interviews — one at 3, one at 4. They CANNOT cross paths, I’m warned. I add “Escort Mission” to my schedule with an alarm set for 3:50.

3:45 PM: Procedural Violation

Mr. 4 PM arrives early. Matthew, my old paralegal pal, is now furiously knocking on the glass wall separating us in a desperate bid to get my attention.

3:46 PM: Deposition Under Duress

I escort Mr. 4 PM to a side room and start engaging.

“I’m the Adjunct Deputy Assistant for the Junior Counsel around here,” I tell him.

He’s not the talkative kind.

“Yeah, it’s a position I literally invented this morning,” I say, “the patent isn’t even dry yet.”

He blinks, and I continue: “I’m new, just transferred over from Billum, Daley & Moore.”

No reaction.

“I actually started my career at Bleedum, Dry & Sue, perhaps you’ve heard of them?”

Now he looks nervous.

“Do you always show up to meetings this early?” I ask.

“Not really, this is the earliest.”

Just my luck…. As soon as Jeff and associates arrive, I step out. I’ve filled my quota of awkward.

4:45 PM: Alternative Dispute Resolution

Time for the surprise meeting I arranged. I’d wanted to feel useful, like a contributing member of the team and not just part of the furniture, so when my Egyptian friend mentioned he’d be in D.C., I figured, perfect shidduch, let me set up a meeting. You see, not only does Jeff understand Arabic, but back when he was a bochur, Cairo was just a bus ride from Israel, and he actually spent some time studying in Egypt.

Of course, the two of them share mutual friends and hang out in the same professional circles and this Baltimorean Jew and Egyptian Muslim have an incredible amount in common. I sit there beaming like the proud shadchan I am, and by the time the meeting is over, they’re practically partners in a joint hotel venture along the Nile.

5:43: Exhibit A: Fine Art v. Fine Print

As we walk down the hallway, I take note of the artwork and creative displays. One wall features the door of an old taxicab, and different rooms have distinct themes, many revolving around poker chips and fish tanks. Jeff points out a specific painting, and I joke that I could have painted it with my eyes closed — though, obviously, I couldn’t. “It’s worth $50,000, but I bought on foreclosure it for $2,000,” he explains. This is either a brilliant investment or the world’s most expensive conversation piece.

6:00 PM: Foreign Affairs Division

Jeff hops on a conference call with Australia. I listen. The accents are amazing, but the rest is just some boring lawyer stuff. I sneak out to kitchen area.

6:15 PM: Gag Order

I eat dinner while nodding off to the sound of the call from the next room.

6:45 PM: Closing Arguments

Jeff and I recap the day.

“Think you could do this for a living?” Jeff asks.

“Absolutely,” I tell him. “For like one day, sure.”

He asks me what I’ve learned.

“Law is like storytelling, only with consequences,” I say, before adding, “just like journalism, only the exact opposite.”

7:00 PM: Jurisdiction Transferred to Pacific Time

Jeff takes a conference call with San Francisco. This time I don’t even wait for sleep to kick in; I’m done. Let this be someone else’s headache tomorrow. Matthew’s?

7:02 PM: Motion to Reopen (Approved)

Time to go. I arrive at the parking garage, which is locked. A small sign reads, Garage open from 6 AM – 7 PM. Cue instant panic. Then out of nowhere, a guy from an adjacent, more expensive 24-hour garage rushes over. “Go inside and ask the desk attendant what to do,” he advises. The desk attendant casually says, “Oh, just drive up to the gate. It’ll open automatically.”

My brilliant legal mind has spent an entire day decoding complex legal puzzles — only to be outwitted by a parking sign.

Case closed.

Lunch Lady for a Day

Sandy Eller

Do you have any Nish Nosh crackers without the salad?”

A

hallway isn’t exactly the best place to prepare lunch, I think, staring as the gloppy white stuff dripped down my gloved hands. Especially when your job is to feed over 100 hungry girls in grades K through 8 in under half an hour, and you don’t know that the paper towels and cutlery are in a supply cabinet a few feet away.

My first task as lunch lady at Bnos Leah Prospect Park of Monsey is salad prep, and here I am, using a plastic cup to scoop dressing out of a massive container. I do a great job with the older girls’ portions, which involves pouring dressing onto a roaster pan and giving it a thorough mix, but disaster strikes when I start preparing the kindergartener’s smaller serving bowls. The dressing oozes out of my cup in blobs, and I quickly use my (gloved) hands to rearrange it into what I hope passes as an artful drizzle, getting dressing all over myself in the process. Let’s just say I go through more than my fair share of latex gloves that afternoon.

I

shouldn’t have been nervous as I pulled up — I can scoop macaroni onto a plate — but knowing I’m a generation older than the typical lunch volunteers, mothers in the school, is still pretty daunting.

Back when I was in elementary school, everything served in the lunchroom was made on-site. But these days, I learn, many schools have their meals sent by a caterer. I arrive at the front door at the same time as the food delivery guy, whose hand truck is piled high with three nice-sized cardboard boxes and multiple large roaster pans.

In no time at all, I’m introduced to Sandra, queen of the midday meal, who doesn’t speak any English. Communication between us is difficult, since the sum total knowledge of my tenth grade Spanish consists of “¿De qué color es la bandera de Estados Unidos?” (what color is the United States flag?). Instead, I opt for playing Charades.

I point to myself, shrug my shoulders, and mime what I hope looks like “helping” with my hands. Sandra gets the message and points to the other end of the box in front of her. Together we unpack a meal that looks nothing like what you read about in kids’ books — no mystery meat or canned peas and carrots. I take stock of it all: two huge pans of crisp shredded lettuce with juicy grape tomatoes, a big bucket of Caesar dressing, four bags of Nish Nosh crackers, two trays of doughy potato knishes, two large containers of still-hot bean soup, a pan of quartered oranges, and a crate of half gallons of blue milk.

I’m pleasantly surprised by how fresh it all looks and by how far school lunches have come over the years. Another change I note, in a nod to the prevalence of food allergies, is the absence of peanut butter on the menu.

I get to work on the salads — in the hallway, because Prospect is currently in a rented space with no lunchroom. The elementary school girls will come to the hallway where the lunch team will serve them food, while the preschoolers will get plates of food sent up to their classrooms for them to eat in groups at their tables.

Ten minutes later, when I go back to Sandra for my next task, I see she’s already poured the bean soup into half-cup portions. I look at what’s left and decide I’m well suited for making cream cheese sandwiches, because even a toddler can make a respectable sandwich, right?

Wrong. There are no cutting boards, and the knives are the kind that come in a case of 1,000 for five dollars and bend if you so much as breathe on them. Worse yet, the whole wheat bread is pillowy soft, which may be delicious to eat but is a nightmare when spreading cream cheese.

Following Sandra’s example, I attempt to assemble my sandwiches midair, spreading cream cheese on half a slice, folding it in half, and pinching the ends together.

Please let the cream cheese glue it all together, please let the cream cheese glue it all together, I half mutter, half pray, as I work my way through the loaf in front of us.

All of this takes about 15 minutes, and the vibe in the hallway is pretty relaxed — until the girls start showing up.

I

look up and see bunches of girls in gray pleated skirts and oxford striped shirts all over the hallway, chattering happily. It’s go time, I realize — they’re ready for lunch.

The girls line up with their white Styrofoam plates. Sandra and a volunteer mom stand behind the tables, and in a matter of seconds, they’re doling out salad, plating knishes, serving oranges, and unsuccessfully encouraging students to try the soup.

Me? With four loaves of bread waiting, I’m still busy making sandwiches.

As the mom of four daughters, I have a special place in my heart for cuties in uniforms, and I loved seeing the girls lining up neatly and waiting patiently for their turn.

“Are there extra oranges?” asks one girl, smiling shyly. “Can I have salad without dressing?” is a fairly common refrain, but the most common question of all is, “Do you have any Nish Nosh crackers without the salad?”

As I stand on the side coaxing cream cheese onto bread, I ask a few of the girls if the pareve cholent is their favorite lunch, having gleaned that bit of information from the office ladies. One girl says yes, another tells me she prefers the noodles, and of course, a sixth grader just rolls her eyes when I ask what her favorite lunch is and mutters, “None.” The girls aren’t particularly chatty, but I’m guessing they’re eager to get back to their friends instead of bonding with the lunch ladies.

One teacher comes over to ask me for extra cream cheese on her class’s sandwiches, because that’s how her girls like them. I’m tempted to hand her a tub of cream cheese and one of my three-for-a-penny knives and let her slather on as much as she’d like, but I swallow the urge, smile, nod my head, and keep on smearing, folding, pinching.

My absolute favorite question of the day is from the girl who asks if she could please have a plain slice of bread. I totally could have hugged her. Plain bread! I know how to make plain bread!

And then, suddenly, the hall empties as quickly as it filled, and the only people hovering at the lunch tables are staff. One teacher walks by and snags a knish, and a few others help themselves to the soup that the girls hadn’t even deigned to taste.

“Are you a Prospect mom?” one morah wants to know.

“I am.”

“Which one is your daughter?” she asks, in an attempt to match me to one of her students.

“Rabbi Kelman,” I reply, referring to the assistant menahel, who happens to be my son-in-law.

The look on her face is priceless.

I turn to Sandra to ask, Charades style, what’s next on the agenda, but apparently volunteer lunch ladies aren’t expected to put things away and get the hall back in order, so I throw out my gloves and say my goodbyes.

I glance at the time on my way out: 12:30 p.m. Definitely time to go home and throw some lunch together.  Maybe I should make a poke bowl.  Or an omelet.  Or avocado toast. Anything but a cream cheese sandwich.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1053)