Maybe if I stare long enough at my contact list, I think to myself, someone will hear my telepathic prayer: please invite me for Shabbos! Please invite me for Shabbos!
Words fail to aptly describe the hospitality of my in-towner friends, but every once and a while there’s a week when someone has the nerve to get engaged and invite in-towners for the Shabbos Kallah. Or when all eligible in-towners, seized by some inexplicable and pernicious desire to do good, ship out to Shabbatonim around the U.S. where they get no sleep, exhaust their vocal chords, and subsist solely on sour sticks and Kumsitzes.
Staying in is always a good option, but I sense that my sanity depends upon a change of scene, preferably one set in the suburbs and dotted with those brown and green edifices which I am told are called trees.
Suddenly, my phone vibrates. My heart leaps.
Alas, it’s Angel reminding me about a paper looming sinisterly on the horizon. Disappointment sets in. With a sigh, I pull up my contact list again and continue gazing fixedly at the screen, until my eyelids, unable to hold out, slowly droop shut.
I. Dear In-Towner,
Unlike you and Dumbledore, I do not have a map of the subway tattooed to my leg. In fact, it was just last week that I discovered that NYC is actually a grid and just yesterday that I realized that the streets turn from East to West at 5th Avenue. As it turns out, there are no boats or cargo at Port Authority.
In addition, I am convinced that Broadway (the street, not the shows) is out to get me. The shows merely have it in for my budget.
Also, the subway frightens me. It is inhabited by loud, menacing people.
Sometimes they don’t even say hello or smile.
II. Dear In-Towner,
Thank you for your patience when I ask if Washington Heights is uptown or downtown or when I take the LIRR to Jamaica and wind up in southern Pittsburgh.
Once my cell-phone regains reception, I’ll be calling you for directions.
Also: leftovers. The single most beautiful word in the English language.
To you, dear in-towner, the term likely conjures up images of wilting lettuce, cholent congealed into a single, malodourous mass, and a Tupperware of gelatinous chicken soup.
To me, it signifies home-cooked food and the precious pennies I will not have to spend on my caf card.
III. Dear In-Towner,
I’m on my way back from the dorms after Pesach vacation. I’m red-faced from dragging my suitcase to Brookdale. The taxi left me off at the corner of Park and 34th but naturally I lost my way and had to trek along the East river, with gusts of cold, polluted air beating against my face and making my knuckles bleed.
My suitcase is full to the gills with all of the clothes I will need to brave the NY winter. All of my clothes, except for the pretty new shirt I bought while I was home. It was a hard decision—heat-retaining winter jacket with new thermal insulation technology or pretty shirt?—but fortunately, pragmatism prevailed and I packed away the shirt for another occasion.
I don’t feel too bad for myself. After all, I can always bring it up next time I go home. And besides, as a wise friend often says, sacrifice helps build character.
I heave my suitcase through the door. Too broad to fit comfortably through the doorframe, it pushes back against the doorpost with force, toppling me to the floor like a bowling pin. I ease myself up and steady my gait. ‘Don’t let this suitcase get the best of you,’ I tell myself.
Wisened up, I position the bulging suitcase sideways through the door. At long last, my suitcase and I have crossed over the threshold. I collapse onto my bed and try not to think about my wonderful family back home.
Suddenly a lovely in-towner comes traipsing through the door.
We hug and converse. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a small, dainty parcel in her right hand.
“What have you got there?” I ask pleasantly.
“Oh this,” she says, with a dismissive shrug. “It’s everything I need for tonight. I’m going home tomorrow to bring the rest of my clothes for the week.”
I smile weakly.
Then I faint.
The following day, a man on the subway throws up on my heat-providing winter jacket with new thermal insulation technology.
‘It’s character building,’ I tell myself through gritted teeth.
V. Dear In-Towner,
How can I thank you enough for opening up your home and your heart to me? Don’t you think it’s about time I reciprocated? Will you please come and visit me soon at my home in Hollywood, Florida? True, it may not have brusque, soul-crushing salespeople, bumper-to-bumper traffic, or urban smog. But it does have palm trees, sunny weather, and best of all—my mom’s delicious, home-cooked leftovers in the fridge.