A tragic end to Hanukkah

This has been a contemplative Hanukkah for us this year, what with Professor TMI flying off to Ireland to visit his twin sister Mitzy and Sandor The Amazing taking the guest room while the circus takes their annual winter break.

Sandor has been part of our family since the early 90’s when he answered our ad that said, “babysitter wanted, must not be mean, angry or rabid.” Ironically he was most of those things, but we learned that a little too late. Sure Sandor is a circus performer, or circus freak depending on what county the circus is currently licensed in, but for the most part, he is a nice guy, with a few too many tattoos, a serious drinking problem (“not a problem as long as Sandor keep drinking,” he likes to joke) and a recent dismissal as mascot at Penn State University due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with a fury named Shantell, the mascot for the Clarke County Community College Wild Cats.

Last night, as the sun began to set, I had the Torah out and was reading the prayer and Sandor was standing in, although he is not Jewish, he was drunk and he said he thought it would be fun to “watch the money changers exchange their ill gotten gold and shit.” As he was wobbling during my Torah reading I noticed he kept spilling a little of whatever it was he had in his open flask. A little splash here, a little leakage there, almost all of it falling on the thick winter coat of my lesbian lawyer dog Beth. She did not seem to mind, she lay sleeping on the floor surrounded by me, Sandor the drunken circus freak, my Ipad where Professor TMI was beaming in from a pub somewhere in Ireland via Skype and 9 of my children. Little Timmy and his sisters Helga and Helga 3 could not make it, the Helgas are still in jail in Tuscany and little Timmy, well, we are not sure where he is anymore and quite honestly, and I am going to be real with you here, I never really liked little Timmy all that much.

I finished reading the prayer from the Torah and I asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say as part of our Hanukkah tradition. Over Skype Professor TMI asked “is Sandor the freak drunk right now?” and we all said of course and laughed, because no one has ever seen Sandor not drunk. Sandor waved to the Ipad and said, “heblo TMI, what are you doing on the TV?” and we all laughed some more, it is such fun to have drunk people over for the holidays.

Here is where I think we had a bit of a Rashomon moment.

Want to know the rest of this story?

The Many Deaths of Beth - Available on Amazon in early 2012.