Well, apparently, since the picture of the girl wearing the crown that is the Starbucks logo is that of Queen Esther, Queen of the Jews. Hmm. News to me.
It's good to be back. Sorry I haven't posted lately, but between Pesach, work, and bronchitis, it's been kinda hectic lately...
Oh. My. God. Not that I ever needed reaffirming to my decision to leave the Chabad fold so many years, but I got it anyway last week.
My mom received a rather large chunk of money from Social Security, which allowed her to move to our town and settle in a nice little apartment about two blocks away from us. We rented a truck with this money, and a friend of my parents' offered to drive it, free of charge, as long as my mom paid for the gas, the rental, and what little food he needed.
Sounds nice, right?
Wrong. This guy, and really, all my thanks to him for do such an act of chesed for my mom, is THE Lubavitch stereotype. He is a boor, an Am Ha'Aretz, thinks he's an expert at EVERYTHING, the son of Ba'alei Teshuva (not that that's a bad thing - so am I, but at least I had the foresight to move on from Chabad at a pretty early age). Now, I'm not judging him on his total ignorance on pretty much every subject he discussed. The problem was, he didn't take that one little piece of advice from Pirkei Avos: Syag LaChochma SHTIKA - a fence to wisdom is SILENCE. In other words - if you're dumb and don't want people to know it, keep your mouth shut. Otherwise people will certainly know you're not the brightest bulb in chandelier. And this guy personified this notion, in blazing colors.
First, he thinks he's expert at everything, especially about hashgacha, mainly because he worked as a mashgiach. He won't eat OU glatt because it's not good enough. Then he'll deny insinuating it's not good enough. Cholov stam is pure traif, but then he'll deny insinuating that, too. Satmar supervised meat is no good because thirty-five years ago, when the Satmars controlled most of kashrus in the US, there was an incident with traif meat. Therefore, for all time, Satmar is traif. But then he'll deny insinuating THAT. My response to the last was we specifically DON'T eat Lubavitch meat because for all we know, the shochtim and the mashgichim are Meshichist who believe the Rebbe is God incarnate (funny, didn't we go through that about 2000 years ago? As I recall, that didn't work out so well for the Jews). When it came to keeping Chalav Yisrael, he went on and on about the hechsherim were originally put on the foods to allow people to have their children drink pure milk when on trips, but for no other reason and he insinuated that anything with a D tagged on the hechsher was actually not kosher because the whole D thing got completely out of control. In other words, anything with non-Chalav Yisrael in it was indeed traif in all but name.
Of course, if you follow that logic, then nothing with those hechsherim at all is actually kosher. What was so ridiculous is when I spelled out his insinuations, he completely denied them, not by saying he didn't say they weren't kosher, but by saying "I never SAID that!"
This guy went on and on and on. He just wouldn't shut up for the three days he was here!
And that's not the worst of it! When he set out last on Saturday night (March 21) we told him to take his time and not get here until Wednesday as my mom wasn't arriving until Tuesday night and wouldn't have the keys to her apartment until Wednesday morning. Did he listen? No. Of course not. He decided to chew an entire package (at least!) Jolt gum (made, I believe, by the makers of Jolt Cola - twice the caffein, all the sugar). Problem was, he did NOT follow the instructions on the box because the guy refused to read. The box stated that TWO pieces, NOT an entire package, were the equivalent to a full energy drink serving (think Red Bull).
So, he simply couldn't sleep most of the trip and drove 45 out of 52 hours straight to get here. Guess when he got here? Yeah. 5:25 AM on Tuesday morning. Woke us all up by calling to let us know he was outside. Idiot.
And, it gets even better. The guy conked out on my couch for about five and a half hours, snoring loudly through a meeting I was trying to have here. He also ate us out of house and home, but ONLY pareve stuff. No meat, no dairy. Neither was kosher enough for him. And the amounts he ate were incredible.
On top of all that, this guy was completely uncouth, didn't shower, was loud and obnoxious, and all around annoying.
This guy made $300 for the drive. He also got lots of furniture and appliances out of my mom's house, probably worth a grand total of about $5000 for $1500. It was originally supposed to be $3250, but he said no because he knew we really had no choice, so he accepted a contract with the amount of $2500. He then emailed me at 6:20 AM EST (that's 3:20 AM HIS time) and protested the $2500. To just get rid of him, I agreed to $1500. It was worth not speaking to him again.
Ah, yes. Speaking to him. He called last Friday morning at 2:53 AM after two attempts to reach me on my cell phone and a first attempt on my home phone. Woke us up at 3 in the friggin' AM. When I made mentioned of it, he said he "forgot" the time difference. Because Midnight is any better, right? And he had just gotten home from Cleveland and rushed right over to my mom's old house to take stuff and it was so important to call me, who had nothing to do with ANYTHING in Las Vegas, and tell me someone had taken the washing machine he was supposed to get.
What an idiot.
I'm not sure I've properly conveyed how much of a visit from hell this was. I mean, it was a MAJOR visit from hell. Thank God my wife had the foresight NOT to allow him to stay in our home. We were actually able to put him up in an empty house that's for sale and has some furniture in it. Thank God for small favors. But really, I don't know if I can properly convey what an idiot this guy is! He got all bent out of shape when I talked my mother out of continuing to keep Chalav Yisrael because the quality is terrible and it's WAY too expensive and she just can't afford it. He tried valiantly to convince her to continue keeping this silly chumrah, almost, but not quite, to the point of telling her how traif non-Chalav Yisrael products actually are. He pissed me royally, and after he'd gone on for HOURS, I finally exploded a the guy and told to butt the fuck out business not his own and explained quite clearly that my mom needed every dollar she could save. I FINALLY (I hope) managed to shut him up, but it took an awful long time.
I drove him to Mincha at the local Chabad shul here, and he was so excited when he got out of the car, he exclaimed he couldn't wait to see a friendly Lubavitch face. In other words, no one else is frum.
And that's really the message this guy conveyed during his stay here. No Judaism aside from Lubavitch is real Judaism. No Judaism except Lubavitch Judaism is kosher Judaism. And that was the basic message he conveyed, and it was disgusting.
Now, this schmuck keeps calling me. Luckily, every time he's called this week, my mom was here, so SHE got to talk to him instead of me. I really pray he ceases having contact with me. I'm not his friend. I don't WANT to be his friend. I just want him to go away. Forever.
Well, that's my rant for the week. It's been brewing for a week. It's finally out.
3 O'Clock in the effing morning. Moron.
