From the desk of Stella Goldberg

Dear Stella is an advice column written by Stella Goldberg – mother, wife, and all around dispenser of wisdom. You may send your questions to her at 1445 Jupiter Street, Queens, NY 10045.

Dear Stella,

My husband is lazy. He won’t do anything! He won’t load the dishwasher, he won’t walk the dogs, he just sits around and plays Call of Duty. Sometimes I want to spend special, alone time with him and he’s too busy playing his video games to even do that! What should I do?

UGH! MEN!

Dear Ugh,
After as many years of marriage as Morty and I have had, I know how that goes. I tell him to do things, he ignores me. Meh. What can you do? If he tried to do it, he’d just mess it up anyway. I just do it myself – that way it’s done right the first time. One woman who will never know that pain, though is my daughter Frannie. She’s going to marry this fancy lawyer named Sol. Oh, and the woman who marries my son, Jared. She’ll be the wife of a doctor. He’ll be too busy saving lives to worry about doing the dishes, but that’s the price you pay when you marry a doctor like my son, Jared.

Anyway, about Frannie. Some diligent readers might have noticed that I briefly mentioned that I was having a little St. Patty’s day get together with Sol, his family, and Frannie. I don’t normally talk about myself in these columns, so I’m sure this one break in professionalism was noticed by many. Well, I’m sure you’re wondering how that all turned out. Let me tell you. So Sylvia came over with her husband and Sol. Frannie greeted them at the door with kind hellos, because I raised her right. Then she turned to Sol – her future fiancé, and said “I’m sorry!” “I’m sorry!” I says. “Frannie, why are you apologizing for this lovely get together?!!? We’re going to have a great time. A great little nosh, some of my famous cherry cheese blintzes, and we’ll all talk about your future together.” “Muth-ther!” she says. You know how the kids say it with an eye roll. Seriously – she’s how old and she still rolls her eyes like a teenager. “WHAAAT?” I says. “Come on, Sol, I’ll show you those drawings I was talking about.” Frannie is quite an artist, you know. She has made quite a career for herself doing anatomical drawings for medical text books. Not enough to get her moved out of my house, I’m just sayin’. “Leave the door open!” I shouted up the stairs as they trotted up.

So I turned to Sylvia. “What did you bring?” I asked. Wouldn’t you know if she didn’t look me dead in the eye and say “Oh, I made some of my delicious cherry cheese blintzes.” I’d like to have blintzed her at that moment. But I just smiled and said “Oh, then we’ll have extra because I made my famous cherry cheese blintzes, too.” “Sure, we can eat those if we run out of mine, they probably didn’t dry out like yours tend to” she said. “They’re going to be family…they’re going to be family…” I just kept repeating that in my head. I can’t hold anything against this woman. So I painted a smile on my face, served up her runny, tasteless “blintzes” and said “So, Frannie and Sol have been seeing a lot of each other lately…do you think that’s going to go anywhere? I’d love to see Frannie end up with a nice boy like Sol.”

Sylvia painted the same smile on her face and said “I’m sure you would. He’s a good boy. He’s a lawyer, you know.” “I know, my son Jared is a doctor. I know what it is to have a smart, successful son.” “Well,” Sylvia responded, “then you know how important it is that he be paired up with someone worthy of his talents.” “Are you implying that my Frannie is not good enough for your Sol??!!” “No,” bitch said, “I’m saying it flat out. Frannie is not good enough for him. She’s got a liberal arts degree! She sits at home watching Judge Hatchett with you and Morty every night. She wouldn’t be a good mother, she wouldn’t raise my godson in the temple, she wouldn’t want him to be a doctor. She’d probably let him go around uncircumcised to comic book conventions or something. I will not have my grandson raised by that daughter of yours.”

I slammed down my plate of bland chemotherapy food. “You have no right to say those things about my daughter! Frannie is a good girl who would make a good wife to your Sol. And she most certainly would not let my grandson go without a proper bris!”

At that moment, I heard a noise behind me. I turned to find Frannie and Sol standing there with shocked looks on their faces.

“Mom!” they both yelled in unison. Frannie was crying, I could tell. “Mom,” she said. “What are you guys doing? Why are you doing this to us?”

“You too, Mom!” said Sol in a less than congenial tone.

“Well, it doesn’t much matter, anyway,” said Sylvia. “It’s not like you’re going to be getting married or anything. And you certainly won’t be having my grandson.”

“Well, Mom. That’s where you’re wrong,” said Sol. I grabbed the back of my chair in anticipation. Were they engaged? Oh, my God! Was I finally going to get her out of my house?!?! And married to a real lawyer – a real, Jewish lawyer?!?! It was a mother’s dream. I held my breath and waited. Sol took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant” Frannie shouted just as Sol opened his mouth.

“HOW!?” I screamed. “YOU’RE NOT MARRIED!!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN!?!” That’s the last thing I remember. That and the sound of glass breaking as I took out the table as I fainted. But, dear reader, wouldn’t you know that when I came to, Morty had done the dishes and cleaned up the whole kitchen himself. So if you want your husband to take care of a little light housework, there are ways to make him!