Welcome back to “How Should I Know?”—the advice column where the questions never stop coming in, even if we try to rush the answers.
Dear Mordechai,
I have to get new glasses, but how would I know if they’re a good fit for my face if half my face is covered in a mask?
R.F.
Um … How long can you hold your breath?
These places really need to have dressing rooms with mirrors now. So I say maybe get your glasses from a store that has a clothing department. Or bring like a small pop-up sukkah with you. Those things are made for these times. Not just for Sukkos anymore! Also for eating in public.
One part of me says to just see what the new ones look like with your mask. We might be wearing masks for a while, and how long does a pair of glasses last? Especially if you can’t see where you’re going.
Also, as long as we’re wearing masks, we should all maybe think about investing in contact lenses, if only to avoid the fogging issue. Do contacts fog up? I haven’t heard people complain. And yes, you might not love the thought of sticking your fingers in your eyes. But we’re living in an age when we routinely have medical professionals stick a Q-tip up our nose, so I think we should reconsider whether shoving our own fingers in our eyes is really that bad. The worst is that you see the finger coming toward you. With COVID tests, the way I handle it is I close my eyes. That way the timing is a surprise, I guess. How should I handle inserting contacts? By closing my nose?
Dear Mordechai,
I’ve recently come into possession of a large amount of milk, for reasons I don’t want to get into. None of my neighbors want it either, and it just keeps coming. What can I do with it?
E.H.
I would say to freeze them. And then pull them out later, for mishloach manos. No one can refuse them then.
You know, there are so many milchig foods, you’d think there’d be something you can make with milk. The problem is that very few recipes call for that much milk. Though I have a vague memory of my grandparents at some point making something called “milk soup.”
QUESTION: Isn’t that called cereal?
No, it was hot. Though to be honest, it sounds like something they made in Europe when they had a bunch of milk to finish up before the end of the day and no refrigerators, and also they wanted the kids to fill up so they would fall asleep already so the adults could get stuff done before the sun went down. Warm milk! That’s the way to go.
Personally, we’re just going through chocolate powder like crazy.
There are non-food uses, just so it doesn’t go to waste. For example, from what I’ve read, you can use it on your skin for bug bites, poison ivy, and sunburn. But this knowledge isn’t that useful, because you have a lot of milk to get rid of, and it’s hard to hope your family suddenly gets a lot of bug bites and poison ivy.
“Let’s all go on a hike! No, no one bring protection!”
You can also remove ink from clothing by soaking it in milk overnight. By the morning, you will have smelly clothes that you’ll want to throw away. Problem solved!
You can also soak china in it to remove hairline cracks, if you don’t mind all your china becoming treif. Or I guess if you have milchig china, in which case you can probably just afford to buy new china. So never mind this tip.
Also, you can rinse your hands in milk a couple of times a day to relieve skin dryness. Apparently, anyone who somehow has dry skin from washing their hands too much the past few months was supposed to be fixing it up with milk this whole time. Who knew? When Hashem closes a door, he opens a window.
Dear Mordechai,
Why is it that if nobody finds your joke funny, you feel bad, yet the more groans and eye rolls you get for a pun or a dad joke, the happier you feel?
Punchus Cornfeld
See, you’re looking at it all wrong: A pun is not a type of joke. It’s a tool that fathers use to passive-aggressively inflict pain on their loved ones, like bad singing. You give him so much stress, this is how he gets you back. You don’t feel bad that the person you punched doesn’t enjoy your punch, do you?
This is why it’s called a punchline.
I look forward to your eye rolls.
Dear Mordechai,
Why are white-collar crimes called white-collar crimes? Not every person who commits one is a yeshiva guy.
E.D.
I think the idea is that certain crimes are committed by a higher class of people, though that leads to more questions:
1. Isn’t everyone who commits a monetary crime just trying to get to a higher class?
2. If you say they’re a higher class already, what makes them better than anyone else if they’re committing crimes?
So for example, breaking into a bank in the middle of the night is a blue-collar crime, or a hoodie crime, or—OK, I don’t know the dress code. Whereas in white-collar crime, you have your butler do it. Hence that expression.
Also, white-collar crimes include embezzlement, corporate fraud, and money laundering—crimes that you and I don’t actually know how to do. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’d have to Google “how to launder money.” Also, I think you need money before you start. The only people who can do these crimes are the people who’ve gone to prestigious universities that taught them how to commit these crimes.
I don’t know. I majored in writing.
Dear Mordechai,
Were hankies ever really a thing? Why weren’t people afraid of germs?
E.D.
This wasn’t about germs. No one was really sharing hankies.
Firstly, this was in the days before tissues, so it was mostly a way to encourage your higher-class people to not use their sleeves.
Also, hankies were used for:
• Cleaning your monocle
• Waving goodbye to departing ships
• Taking leftovers home from a Kiddush
• Emergency backup yarmulke (or snood)
• Magic tricks
• Face mask for old-timey pandemics, I’m assuming
• To show that you surrender
• Identity protection for robbing stagecoaches
• To avoid getting fingerprints on the bank vault
• To filter noodles in yeshiva back in Europe
• To hold hot pots, for people who didn’t have yarmulkes
• Sleep mask
• Adult bib
• Jumping rope at weddings
Altogether, I think it had more uses than your smartphone, and that has plenty of germs, too. That you then smear around the glass with your finger.
Dear Mordechai,
For how many nights should I be expected to eat Shabbos leftovers?
Full of Cholent
Hashem gives you schar for every day that you think about Shabbos.
Dear Mordechai,
Why do the open-24-hours stores have locks on their doors?
E.D.
They’re for when the cashier goes out to Minchah.
Dear Mordechai,
Does the word “figment” appear anywhere other than in conjunction with “of your imagination”? Is figment a real word, or is it just a figment of someone’s imagination?
M.G.
Every word is a figment of someone’s imagination.
But I looked up figment, and the definition is “a thing someone believes to be real but that exists only in their imagination.” That said, “figment of your imagination” is redundant, like “ATM machine,” “please RSVP,” and “tuna fish.”
It also sounds like it could be some kind of skin cream made out of figs. As in, “I had a rash that was caused by not moving around enough, so I put a figment on it, and now bees won’t stop chasing me.”
Dear Mordechai,
Why do we say “it costs peanuts”? Are peanuts that cheap?
Going Nuts
“It costs peanuts” doesn’t have to mean it’s cheap. It could mean that peanuts were sometimes used as currency, instead of bills and coins. You’d put a few in your wallet, you’d sit down on them by mistake, and that’s how peanut butter was invented. And also why peanuts were worth less as a currency. Just below wooden nickels, which, if you had two of them to rub together, sometimes caught fire.
Dear Mordechai,
Why is breakfast salami called so? Do people have it for breakfast?
N.E.
I’ve never had this or heard of it, but I assume it’s for immediately after a ta’anis.
Dear Mordechai,
How can we try and preserve our minds in these trying lockdown times?
From a desperate mind-loser!
Sorry I waited 11 months to respond to this one. Are you still there?
Have a question for “How Should I Know?” Send it in, and maybe I’ll answer it in another lightning round, hopefully not several months too late.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.
