The Old Jewish Couple

Abraham and Ethel are in their mid 80s and have been married for nearly 60 years. We meet them as Abraham drives to the airport to pick up Ethel. They're both excited to see each other again.

Ethel just got back from a conference dealing with Jewish issues. She's an industrious octogenarian. Abraham gets to the airport, but he's not sure where to park. He parks near Terminal C, because it says Continental, forgetting that it's referring to the airline and not location. Luckily for Abraham, Ethel has no idea he parked in the wrong place or she'd let him have it.

Driving home, Abraham takes the wrong tunnel into the city, as usual. Ethel has no idea what's going on, but she yells at him anyway, figuring he must have done something wrong. Still driving through the city, Ethel screams "Citibank!" every time she spots her bank, as she's done for the past 60 years. Then she tells an old anecdote, "I know the owner of Citibank."
"No you don't. You MET him once and talked to him for twenty minutes," Abraham replies.
"That's not true! I KNOW him. And I talked to him twice. One was for an hour, the other time was for about twenty minutes."
Abraham smirks, "That means you met him. You don't know him."
"You're stupid," Ethel answers.
"Hahahaha, I love you too."

They've finally reached their apartment and Abraham is looking for a parking spot. His turn signal's been on for roughly 37 minutes and 12 trips around the block. Ethel keeps screaming and pointing, "Park there!" And Abraham continues to respond quietly, "That's a bus stop dear" or "I'm not allowed to park next to a fire hydrant."

After parking in a garage and muttering about the price, even though they know exactly how much it was going to cost, the couple decides to get something to eat. "I don't want anything fancy," Abraham grumbles. Ethel takes charge, "Let's go to Subway then." Abraham reluctantly agrees.

As they're eating Ethel gasps loudly, "Gaaawwwwd, hurry up and eat!"
"I'm trying."
"Stop praying over your food!"
"I'm eating, leave me alone."
"I don't want to sit in the place anymore. I'm sick of sitting here!" Ethel shouts within earshot of everyone who works in the establishment. Abraham ignores her and keeps eating at the same pace he has throughout his entire life. Fifteen minutes later, Ethel calmly asks, "Are you done?"
"Almost."
Ethel immediately spouts, "Hurry up."
Abraham stops eating and says, "I'm glad to be here with you now."
"Shut up and eat." Abraham puts his head down, but he's not upset. He knows what he's doing. Ethel shows the slightest bit of sympathy and quickly says, "I'm glad to be here with you too, happy now?"
"Hahahahaha, I love you too."

Abraham finally finishes. He gives Ethel an I-love-you smile. Ethel responds with an I-love-you-too eye roll.

The next day they are supposed to meet to go for a walk. Abraham is running late as usual. He tries to send Ethel a message to meet in a different location. But Abraham has never figured out these new technological devices. Ethel never gets his message. She waits for over an hour for Abraham in the freezing cold. Abraham goes home and waits for his wife outside of their apartment building in the freezing cold. He forgot his keys. As the minutes pass without any sign of the other, they both boil into a rage.

Finally Ethel comes home and sees Abraham sitting on the stoop, hunched in his winter jacket. She says, "Hi. What happened?" They both tell their sides of the story and no fight breaks out. Abraham hugs and kisses Ethel and she rolls her eyes.


The dialogue from this story is taken from conversations between me and my friend- I'm 25, she's almost 24. Evidently, we act like an old Jewish couple.