Buon Viaggio!*



The Colostomy.

 I started looking in the travel section of the Jewish press. For weeks all I found were ads about hotels for Passover. Passover in Miami. Passover in Phoenix. Passover in Cancun. Passover in Zimbabwe. Okay, I made that one up. Doesn't anyone stay home for Yom Tov** anymore? I went away for Passover once with wife #1 and once with wife #3 (with wife #2, being in Crown Heights was exotic enough, thank you very much). I was in Newport, Rhode Island and Stamford, Connecticut respectively. Did you know that if you put one foot in the street in Newport, rather than try to run you down like in New York, the cars come to a complete hault? I had a lot of fun doing that. But I really prefer to have my seder in the bosom of my own, dysfunctional family. Don't you think "bosom" should be spelled "buzum"? After a few weeks, I finally found a tiny ad for a tour to "Mystical Morocco". Sounded great, but it was from December 23rd till January 2nd. I wasn't psychologically prepared to travel next week, and besides, Heshy Schwartz's son Avi is getting married on the 23rd. I was getting ready to be disappointed when I noticed that there was another tour advertised in the same ad. This one was to...ITALY! Wow! Italy! The tour leaves February 20th and returns February 27th. Presidents' Week. I found their website and looked at the itinerary; it looked amazing. I called and spoke to the tour director. Turns out he knows me and my brother and my sister and my dead cousin. He said he expects me to be the life of the party if I come. Little does he know that I'm no longer physically capable of being the wild and crazy guy anymore. Indeed, I'm not even sure I can keep up if there's a lot of walking involved. Then the "Voices In My Head" started...

Voice One: "You can't go, you don't have the money and whatever you do have you'll want to leave to your kids".
Voice Two: "You've wanted to do this all your life. You can scrape together the money and you can leave your kids your turtle collection".
Needless to say, Voice Two won!

* Buon Viaggio = "Bon Voyage" in Italian.
** Yom Tov = Holiday.