Sunday, September 26, 2010

"Man Plans, God Laughs"

That's an old Yiddish proverb. It's also the phrase that my boss Sam had tattooed on the inside of his forearm. The inside of his left forearm. In Hebrew. He's Jewish, in case you need more info.

He had told me a while back that he was going to get the tattoo, in Hebrew characters. When he showed it to me, I squinted at it and read "-one Ring to find them, and in the darkness bind them".

He wasn't happy with that. I could tell from his eyes I'd gotten his goat, so naturally, I kept going.

"I didn't know you was Elvish! That's... that's something!"

Definitely was not happy. So I relented.

"That's nice Sam. That's great. Hey, at least you have a rich cultural tradition to borrow from. I couldn't get a tattoo with any of my symbols".

"What do you mean?"

"What could I get? A swastika? SS lightning bolts? I don't think so. The Nazis polluted it all. And then there's the white supremacists".

"Yeah, gee. Your people have it really hard".

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