Shakey Shenkman Alert: Amazon really does sell everything, almost.

So, I get a message from my friend, Susan, and it says: "Cookie, what would you do if you found this Christmas morning under your tree?"

So I clicked the link to Amazon and this pops up:

So I look, I rub my eyes, and I verify this is for real.

And reader, it is.

"It comes with six shmeckles, says my friend.

"For this price?  It should come with more."

I respond to to Susan: "Well, under the Hanukkah bush yes, but this Christmas tree?  Isn't that a bit much?  I mean the Christ child has theoretically just been born.  So I could use the seven days for practice, but..."

Susan responds: "Would you like it in "White" or in "Medium"?

Evidently, "Medium" equals "brown" which means "black".

Reading further, I found a one line description: "Manufactured with care by Nasco in the United States, this Infant Circumcision Trainer, White is an excellent addition to your classroom! Shipping weight is 5 lbs."

"But I don't teach," I reminded Susan.

"The description says it also makes an excellent door stop," she replied.  "Besides, if David Sedaris has a 200 year old medical model of a vagina inset with real pubic hair, why can't you have this?  Think of this of it as a conversation starter."

I thought.  She had a point.  But what kinds of conversations could be started with this thing?

Guest: "What in the world is that?" they would ask, or maybe they would ask if E and I were taking up the art of circumcision like some couples who take up stamp collecting, or bridge.

And I would reply "Oh this?  This is an infant circumcision practice model."

I could then regale them with tales about my own bris.  "According to my Godmother, Rabbi Sol Shenkman did my bris.  He was known in Cleveland Jewish circles as 'Shakey Shenkman' because he was aged and had a tremor."

I once asked my mother who she could have handed me over to an old man at the beginning stages of Parkinson's to handle something so delicate.

"Sol," she began, "did beautiful work," as if he made draperies, or was a master painter.  This was followed by silence.

"And," I asked in a leading way.

"And," my mother replied "nothing.  He asked for the business, brought me flowers and was known for his talents."

"Talents?" I asked.  "Spinning a basketball on one's finger is a talent.  Selecting the right fabrics to get a total design in a room is talent.  Talent is playing Bach by ear.  SKILL is what you want in a moil, not people with Parkinson's."

"Of all the men you've "seen", who has the nicer circumcision, you or they."

This conversation drifted where I certainly didn't want it to go.  But she did have a point.  The Cookie Monster is well done, while some of the men that I have found myself with had messy work done.  The worse seems to be with men who were circumcised by the military when they were in the army, navy, air force or Marines.

Still, I didn't think anyone would want in on this story when they dropped over to collect money for the progressive dinner door prize, or over cocktails (until much, much later) in the evening.

I told Susan that while her offer was generous, that the trainer would be more fitting in her house, a house that had a Mezuzah  in every door into every room.  "It would part of your theme."

And now Susan waits for her knicknack, and she promises to save me one of the six penis that comes with the model.

Oh, boy! Hours of fun await.