Somebody please help.

I need to be restrained from kicking the shit out of yet another stupid parent. Progress reports were mailed out this week, and this mother just came to me with a gripe about her son's religious service attendance, which is marked on the progress report. There is a minimum service attendance that varies with each grade, and every time a student attends a service, he or she is supposed to record it in the book that is provided on the lecturn right outside the sanctuary, so that when progress reports are mailed out, we can look through the book and tally up each student's attendance to make sure they are coming to services.

Not exactly rocket science, is it?

Apparently, it is for this mother who just visited me. Either that, or she's too fucking lazy to make her kid record his service attendance.

She began by saying that there is a problem with her son's progress report, because when the family comes to services they don't mark it down in the book.

"We don't do the book," she told me.

I gave her a blank look.

"We just never mark it down. It's too much trouble."

I gave her a "you've got to be kidding me with this shit" look.

I finally said, "Well, if you don't mark the attendance down in the book, we have no way of knowing if he's coming to services or not. I really don't know what else to tell you."

"Should I talk to (education department head) about this?" she asked.

"Well, yeah--you can, but she'd probably just tell you the same thing."

"Okay, I'll send her an email." she said brightly, and walked away.

If another parent fucking asks me this, I'm going to laugh at them. Yes I will. Loudly and inappropriately, just to convey how much of a stupid, lazy, worthless waste of space I think they are.

And the Rabbi's wife is a bitch. She's been a bitch to me since I first started here, and I've never figured out why. I'm beginning to think she's the type of woman who sees other women as a threat. Don't ask me why, it's just the vibe I get from her. Maybe she thinks I want her husband. Of course, what girl wouldn't lust after a hunka hunka burnin' love like her husband? All hot and horny 5'3" and 108 pounds of him (barf). Christ, give me a break. She can shove it sideways.

Speaking of shoving it, I was talking to Michael on the phone the other day, and he taught me some Hebrew. He lived on a kibbutz in Israel when he was in his early twenties, and since people came from all over to work on the kibbutz, everyone had to learn Hebrew so they'd have one language in common and would be able to communicate with one another. The phrase he taught me? I have no idea how to write it in Hebrew, so here it is phoenetically:

Leck la tease da dain be vock a shaw.

Has a nice ring, doesn't it? It means "Go fuck yourself please." It's a phrase that would come in handy for me, obviously, but also for anyone who'd like the satisfaction of telling someone off without the possibility of getting your ass kicked. (Unless the person in question understands Hebrew, which is unlikely unless you work at a Temple or live in New York). I'm guessing that I could actually use that phrase without getting my ass kicked, considering that I'm taller and fitter than over half the congregants here. But I'd probably get shit canned pretty quickly, so I couldn't really use it unless I had a back up plan or had just won the lottery.

But you know I would.