Get off of my lawn!

Coughing is a lot like farting. I can handle my own, I just don't want to be around when someone else is doing the former or the latter.

Last week, my daughter was home from summer camp, couch-ridden because she wasn't feeling well. The coughing was relentless. I love my daughter and if you spent 5 minutes with her you'd love her too. She's wicked funny, unusually smart and bursting with energy.

But I hate the way she coughs.

She has this odd ptttp--ptttttpppp--ptttp pattern to her cough that is worse than nails being dragged across a chalkboard while the smoke alarm batteries are going off.

Even the obnoxious pit bulls next door made a hasty retreat to somewhere out of earshot.

So I packed up my belongings and made a beeline for Starbucks where I could enjoy the B.O. of strangers and the dulcet tones of shitty corporate approved, focus group tested house music.

No sooner had I settled in with my large black coffee -- I won't use their silly terminology -- and continued the laborious work of tweaking my insignificant collection of short stories for my upcoming book, did I get a text from my daughter Hacky McHackingham.

"Some lady just yakked all over our front yard."

She also texted my wife, who laughed it off and went about the business of selling ad space in America's favorite magazine, Harvard Business Review, sometimes referred to as the print version of a stroke.

I, on the other hand, sprung into action.

I booted up my recently purchased DropCam, which is mounted under the eaves and covers 110 degree angle of my front yard. I backed up the footage and reviewed the tape as if I were an investigator on CSI/Culver City -- The Hurl Detectors.

And sure enough I found the culprit.

You might have seen the video last week, as I immediately posted it on Facebook. But for me, and the for the marketing people at DropCam who were thoroughly amused and want to use it in their next online marketing campaign, it's classic, it's timeless and it merits another viewing.

For maximum pleasure I suggest you turn the volume up on your speakers.



Watching the video brought back memories of being an impressionable young Hebrew School student at the Monsey Jewish Center. My teacher, Mr. Resnikoff was telling us about the rich, humorous literature that sprang forth from the Polish shtettles. In fact, many Yiddish phrases that have entered our modern day lexicon were born there.

For instance:

A Schlemiel is the guy sitting at the counter in a restaurant who, without fail, will always spill his soup.

A Schlemazel is the unfortunate guy sitting next to the schlemiel, who ends up with the spilt soup all over his lap.

And the man who, for no good rhyme or reason, has strangers drive up to his yard and explosively hurl breakfast, and parts of last night's dinner across his lawn, well that my friends would be a Siegel.