We Will Not Be Undersold!

I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. My family was one of the only Jewish families in my school, so as you can imagine, I never had perfect attendance. Missing school for religious holidays was an excused absence, but an absence nonetheless.

Here in Lexington, the picture is somewhat different. Although I'm now a heathen (doesn't that have a nice ring to it?), my son gets Yom Kippur and Rosh Hoshana off from school, because with the large local Jewish population, so many kids would be missing from class on those days that the district designates them official holidays.

This past week was Passover. In Virginia Beach, getting kosher-for-Passover food meant finding a few feet of shelf space at the grocery store with a few items such as matzo and gefilte fish. Everything else, especially the great candy, had to be ordered weeks in advance. Two weeks ago, the Lexington grocery store I shop at ran a full-page ad touting its Passover selection. Though I no longer shop for the holiday (except for the candy, of course), my eye couldn't help but be caught by the headline, "We Will Not Be Undersold On Five-Pound Bundles of Matzo!"

I sent the page to my mom, who's still suffering through Passover, Virginia Beach-style. She just told me that with two days of Passover to go, she and my stepdad have run out of matzo--and the local stores have already cleared their shelves of Pesach goods. To make room for all those Mother's Day groceries, no doubt.