A Jewish grandmother calls her grandson to make sure he knows how to find her new apartment. She does not trust GPS. GPS never raised a child, never hosted a Passover, never once remembered who likes the end piece of the kugel.
“Listen carefully,” she says. “You come to the building on Elm Street. Not Oak, that’s where the dentist is and he still owes me a phone call from 1997. Elm. There’s a glass door in the front.”
“Got it, Grandma.”
“Good. Next to the door is a big silver panel with buttons. With your elbow you push 301. I buzz you in.”
“With my elbow?”
“Yes, with your elbow. You come inside. Immediately on the right is the elevator. Not the left, that’s the garbage room and I will not have you meeting my neighbors that way. You get into the elevator and with your elbow you press the 3rd floor.”
“Okay…”
“You come out, you turn left, and you walk to the end of the hallway. I’m the last door. Again, with your elbow you ring the bell.”
“Grandma,” he says, “this all sounds simple enough… but why am I pressing everything with my elbows?”
There is a pause. You can hear pots clinking in the background and a chair being dragged closer to the phone.
She says, “What… you’re coming empty-handed?”
