Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

126 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

From that day on, she carried the nickname "Aunt Pessie-with-the-Pricetag."

The whole world of our neighbourhood was naturally in a state of suspense about what Aunt Breinie was going to do. She did not do anything but she got something, what she did was to get a loop in her intestine! In those days a loop in the intestine was called a knot, and it was a life-and-death matter, but mostly death.

You can see immediately what kind of good-luck birds rich people sometimes are. When Aunt Breinie was stretched out there in the hospital, the professor discovered that it wasn't really a knot in the intestine but what is nowadays called appendicitis. She turned out to be one of the first who had her appendix operated on, and I don't have to tell you how she talked about it when she finally got well and was back home again. Just as other rich people boast about their jewels, so she bragged about her appendix, which they had taken away from her, and they knocked her out with a pincher on her nose so that she didn't feel anything of the operation and she only blabbed to her Sjaje what she first said when she came out from under the ether. This was because the operating nurse had told her that there was a man before her who was operated on and when he was coming to, the first thing he said was, "Sari, move over with your big fat tochis."

Aunt Pessie-with-the Pricetagjust went to pieces from jealousy. For, no matter how much money you have, where can you go out and buy an appendicitis operation? Nowhere of course. So everybody thought that Pessie had lost the war against Aunt Breinie, but then something very mysterious happened to Aunt Pessie-with-the-Pricetag.