Dear Igor,

Our son Noah invited us for our 40th Anniversary. We flew in from Boca with a big surprise for him. In the six months since we had seen each other we had each gone on  the South Beach Diet.  Cut out sugar, salt, fat and white flour. Dropped thirty pounds.

Sylvia became a “mat person” doing Yoga and Pilates daily along with beachwalking and Tai Chi with Mr. Dhong from the Zen Reinvention Center.  My trainer Rick got me on Creatine and pumped up my sessions to two hours a day.  Along with the protein smoothies, the Creatine makes me fart, loudly and frequently,  but  as Syl says, a little flatulence is a small price to pay.

We had some minor work. Botox to smooth the frown lines; collagen to plump the lips. I had a chin job, a “wattlectomy” Dr. Glattner called it; Sylvia had the sag sacks on the backs of her arms tightened. ” Saul,” she sobbed, I’ve got my elbows back.” Glattner resculpted her “boobies”  and scraped the cottage cheese off her butt.  He flattened my pecs and sliced that bouncy kanagaroo pouch off my scrotum. His partner  Iris, the senior sex therapist at the Sunnydale Complex prescribed  a nip and tuck down under for Syl and a Chinese enhancement operation for me. Now I smear on testosterone gel, pop a Cyalis and shoot up like a porn star. Sylvia calls me “Champ.” I call her “Nurse Ilsa.”  We do Boots and Booty, the Heiress and the Pool Boy, The Rabbi’s Revenge…Our neighbors say they can hear Syl moaning all over the complex. The other day we tried “Driving the Babysitter Home,” but got pulled over by the Highway Patrol. It had a happy ending, though: they let us off with a summons for defective muffler.

Well…We were so excited as we waited at Noah’s door. . 

But he blinked like he  didn’t recognize us. 

“Ta da,” said  Syl  with a cute little curtsy. “Whaddya think?”

He made that ugly  tantrum face like when he was sent to bed without dessert.  “What do I think? I tell you what I think. You look grotesque that’s what I think.”

Noah was irritable, like he was coming off a sugar jag. He’s  naturally jowly and gets that pear look when he noshes. 

“Is any of this covered by insurance?” he shouted. “Is this how you’re spending your grandchildren’s inheritance?”

Little Debbie was watching TV with M&M smears on her face. Hillary was nursing the twins. 

“My God Syl,” Hillary said, “your legs look like popsicle sticks.”

She’s getting those gray mop strings in her hair. Plus she’s starting to spread like peanut butter on toast. I remember when Noah brought her home to meet us. Syl watched her walk into the kitchen and whispered: “mark my words, Saul, that tush is gonna be a problem.”

Things got tense when we told Noah we didn’t eat franks or burgers anymore. Syl peeled the skin off her chicken and asked for some raw carrots and Vitamin Water. Noah caught me dumping my anniversary cake in the garbage.

All they talked about was money. Little Debbie is in pre school at Our Lady of Lourdes for $22K. 

“That’s what our spa cruise is gonna cost,” Syl said. “Sixteen days in the Caribbean. Classes, therapy, massage, ballroom dancing, catering by the top Vegan chefs…”

Hillary had to go on unpaid maternity leave for six months, but  her job has been eliminated in an acquisition and the new owners are not obligated to rehire her.

“I told her to do surrogate,” Syl whispered, “but she wanted to go in vitro and ends up with twins, no less.”

Noah’s insurance won’t reimburse routine pediatric exams. The roof sprung a leak during the storms, but their homeowner’s doesn’t cover  floods.

“All the condo owners paid an assessment on their units before the hurricanes,” Syl said. “Now our complex is fully protected and we had enough left over to build a jacuzzi by the pool.”

Noah got shrill like he does when he doesn’t get his way. ” You two are nothing but naval-gazing narcissists. Does it make you happy that Little Debbie might have to go to public school?”

“This is our time to live for ourselves,” Syl said. “We did our job as parents. We struggled.”

Noah exploded. “Struggled? On high school teacher’s pay? Summers off, private tutoring, cradle to grave insurance, public pension, Social Security?”

Little Debbie wrinkled her nose. “Grandpa made a big smelly,” she said.

“You should teach that child some manners,” I said.

Noah threw the door open. “You should stop eating so much celery.”

Syl cried all the way to the airport. “Is is possible, Saul? Can our own son be jealous of us?”

Is he jealous? Is this paranoia or fact?

Sincerely,
Saul and Sylvia,
Boca Loca, Florida.

Dear Saul and Sylvia,

It is fact. Not only was your son jealous, but he probably wished your plane would crash to stop you from depleting your estate. Your legacy is the  the only way for him to get his head above water. (That is, if you haven’t already disinherited him for Little Debbie’s fart joke.) As you fritter away his patrimony stop and consider: 

You are in Golden Age of Entitlement. Living on  public pension that was protected throughout the economic meltdown; collecting maximum Social Security; covered by Medicare and Union plan; enjoying savings you locked in thirty years ago. Your condo is paid for, you don’t owe a penny. You can spend all your money on yourselves. 

Your son is in the midst of life. What is he,  computer programmer?  Internet marketer? Digital film maker? His salary is stagnant; he’s lucky if he didn’t have to take a cut. He’s on some kind of mini care with a huge deductible and has to pay for supplement to cover his kids. His 401 K blew up in his last job. His wife was laid off. A Hedge Fund owns his mortgage and won’t let him refinance. By the time he retires the eligibility age will probably be 80 with chump change benefits. Medicare will be a death panel. He’ll have to hope Little Debbie or the twins can hit a tennis ball or be American Idol. And that they won’t resent him for deprived childhood he is inflicting on them.

You two remind me of my own father, his teeth should rot in his head. Forty years in Pinsk he drank two liters of vodka a day and smoked fifty Russian cigarettes, which is like sticking your nose in pile of burning sheep dip. Meanwhile, my sainted mother scrubbed floors in the Brest Executive Committee Headquarters. When she collapsed and drowned in her mop pail he came to Greenpoint to sponge off me. He went to Sobieski Senior Center and discovered he was victim of Soviet Sociopathology. He stopped drinking and smoking. Gave up potatoes, took spinning and aerobic kazatski. Now he shops with  hipsters at the Soil and Sea Co Op, six dollars for organic cucumber. He is having hot affair with Olga, a fat tart from Bialystok, spiked heels, peroxide, younger than me. My sainted mother left me her collection of Lithuanian serving spoons that she smuggled out of Odessa in her babushka. But he sold it to take his slyookah on spa cruise. Maybe it’s the same cruise you will be going on. I hope typhoon comes and blows the four of you overboard.

Your friend,
Igor