Franklin's folly

I am now the proud father of a Bat Mitzvah (more on this later, when I have some perspective on the matter.) For now, I am soaking in the quietness of my house. All the relatives have left town.

This is a blissful moment I like to call post-cordialus.

When I speak of relatives, I am not referring to my family, who have all died at a young age, presumably from being excessively sour.

I mean my wife’s family. And there are lots of them. All with roots in Minneapolis. Which, as my uncle remarked, makes them different from New York Jews. They’re nice.

But they do come at you in swarms. In the past, this has regrettably put me on edge. And sparked my less-than-gracious short fuse. But this time was different.

A wise friend, who left the high-pressure world of advertising for the serenity of the Pacific Northwest, turned me on to the miraculous calming wonders of alprazolam.

I’m here to tell you, without any sponsorship money from Pfizer, this stuff works. Particularly when washed down with some fine Kentucky bourbon.

Ben Franklin once said that fish and relatives have a similar shelf life. They both go bad after three days. Thanks to the instant Zen-ness of Xanax, I think we can amend that to four days.