Overheard at Juju’s bagels. Verbatim.
Scene: Two elderly neighborhood women–let’s call them Myra and Sylvia – playing scratch-offs and schmoozing. Myra goes up to the counter and orders tea for them both.
Myra, turning to Sylvia: Sugar?
translation: You want the boy should put sugar in your tea?
Sylvia: Sugar?
translation: What? I can’t hear you.
Myra, louder: Sugar?
translation: What, now you’re deaf? Sugar. Do you want sugar?
Slyvia: Sugar?
translation: You don’t have to yell, I’m not deaf. Do I want sugar? In my tea?
Myra: Sugar?
translation: Yes. What? You think I mean a pile in the middle of the table? A ten-pound bag maybe? Sugar?
Slyvia: Sugar? Yeah. Sugar.
translation: Sugar? Of course, sugar, what do you think? Thirty years you know me, did I ever not have sugar? You have to ask?
Myra, turns to counter man: Sugar.
translation: One tea with sugar, for my meshugah friend. A lovely woman she is, but a little deaf she is going.
