Have You Ever Been FBI Fingerprinted?

I just had my first experience today with background check fingerprinting and it wasn't what I expected. I waited my turn at the UPS store for the man with the little machine to check my digits so that I could get approved to go work in an elementary school library.

The attendant was sitting in front of a computer while I stood over him and he asked me why I was getting fingerprinted and I told him. He smiled up at me.

"Do you wear glasses?"

"Sometimes"

"I love a librarian with glasses. Especially a jewgirl with glasses. I love jewgirls," he said.

Side note: for those of you that don't know, my name is very Jewy, although I don't look traditionally Jewish in the Hitler/Goebbels propaganda sense. It's Rachel Jewenheimermeyervitchstein, but most people just call me Miriam or Schmooly or Hebe-tastic. My husband happens to look very Jewish - with his glasses on he could pass for a hot young rabbinical student. He gets uncomfortable when I tell him that. Back to the story:

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, my first love was a jewgirl. She just posted a picture of herself on Facebook and I liked it and commented that she was my first love. She liked the comment, but I bet her husband didn't. Heh Heh Heh. Jewgirls know what to do, you gotta marry a Jew and spend all his money. That's what they teach the jewgirls. She got it wrong, she married an Italian because she wanted a worker. Mistake."

"Oh yeah, the indoctrination," I said.

"Is that that thing where they cut the guys and it really hurts?"

"No, it's the brainwashing for Jewish girls to marry for money."

"Oh yeah, you see this ring on your finger? They taught you how to do it, didn't they? Yeah, I love jewgirls. Have fun at the liberry. Here's your receipt. NEXT!"

So, I guess I'm a stereotype. Well, so is he.

We're adjusting reasonably well to Philadelphia. Although we live on murder alley, we mostly feel pretty safe and secure. Sometimes, though, there is this guy sitting on the curb across from our door when I take Truffles out for a walk and he wears a weird leather jacket with leather fringe and he has a dog that looks exactly like a goat, but not in a cute way. It looks like a very small skinny white goat that always shakes like it's in detox and makes weird noises and that guy wears a fringe leather jacket.

We live upstairs from a restaurant specializing in craft beer and on some nights, it's very noisy. Our living room will sound like a party, so we occasionally pretend we're at a great party and we actually have friends here (at least I do). That is, when we get tired of making up backstory for all of the cat drama constantly unfolding. Sometimes we forget that it's weird to make up backstory for cats, like the one where they're in a fake office (the spare bedroom) and arguing over which cat is the secretary and which cat is the boss, and we accidentally tell this stuff to other people - who then stare at us like we've just done naked interpretive dance at the mall. We do have a lot of cats. We should get out more.