“It can’t be … No way! What they really fired you from Mishpacha? And you started working here at the pizza shop?” The three Yidden surrounding me couldn’t believe their eyes. “What happened?” they asked pityingly.

“Downsizing” I answered tersely heaving a heavy sigh as I concentrated on wiping down the tables. “Salary cuts. It’s not that I won’t be writing anything at all anymore but … it’s not what it was. So … you want olives or mushrooms on your pizzas?”

They were upset. They were used to reading my articles in our English weekly. They were used to my photo peeking out at them from all sorts of weird locales. They never dreamed I’d be serving them at Mendelsohn’s Pizza on Eighteenth Avenue in Boro Park.

“You’re like … serious?” they asked again.                     

“With mushrooms or olives? I’ll serve you the pizza and continue the story.”

Two of them couldn’t make up their mind.

“With mushrooms is very good” I recommended as if I were the chef conjuring up my nicest smile. I hurried to the oven to fill their order though they seemed more curious to hear my story than to eat the pizza. I took the hot pizza from the oven sliding it onto the tray just the way the boss had taught me when he hired me this morning and submissively served each one his portion.

“So like … what happened?” they asked.

“The competition killed us off” I told them my throat choked with tears. “Competition in Eretz Yisrael and in chutz l’Aretz too. It’s hard. The advertising level went down. One day they called me in and told me that I’d have to find some additional parnassah.”

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