It’s my mother’s side of the family that is really strange. The men on that side, to be absolutely precise. Why? Well, on the day Obama was sworn in as president, my cousin Joe (god bless him and keep him well forever or else there will be nowhere for me to go to get my needed doses of laughter) was bewildered as to why Obama was going to parties after the swearing in ceremony as opposed to going straight to the office and getting started on cleaning up the mess. And the thing is, Joe was serious. Because the Zeccardi male is totally incapable of understanding the concept of a day off, an hour wasted, an afternoon of just lazing in the sun. Surely, they reason, there must be some work to be done somewhere. I’ve always contended that if we had a nuclear war and were all forced to take shelter underground, the day after the bombs stopped falling, while all the earth was still a smoldering ruin, a Zeccardi male would be found emerging from the fallout shelter, suit on, brief case in hand, wondering why everyone wasn’t going back to work like they were. After all, they’d reason, people had already taken one day off for the bombing. Why be lazy and take two?
I’m so glad that gene isn’t the dominant one in my genetic code.