A BACHELOR AND HIS SANITARY NAPKINS

Once upon a time, decades ago, my grandparents owned a little grocery store in the old Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. My grandmother and mother ran the store, rolling herring and pickle barrels out onto the sidewalk at 5:00 AM in the frigid pre-dawn darkness.

But, my grandfather was a man of leisure. He came down to the store at 9:00, dressed in the flashy suit of a mafia don, complete with diamond pinky ring, checked yesterday’s receipts and disappeared, purportedly to go “to market.” Decades later, my mother disclosed that he always had a woman on the side. But that was back then when wives suffered silently through their husbands’ peccadilloes. So, my grandfather caroused like a tycoon, trying to hide that he was just another little storekeeper.

My grandfather benefited the store in only one way: He was a marketer par excellence. When Cross and Blackwell came out with a new flavor of jelly, he’d offer housewives tastes of it, something that no other immigrant grocer would have considered.

When the rumor spread that mayonnaise was a dairy product, housewives resisted for fear of mixing milk with meat. To combat the false report, my grandfather asked the Chasidic rebbe across the street to declare that mayonnaise was pareve. Then, he proceeded to tape copies of the official document to every lamppost in a mile radius.

My grandfather’s only near-mistake was trying to market women’s sanitary napkins. But, the idea of purchasing them at Abe Goldsmith’s grocery was beyond propriety.

For months, the crates of sanitary napkins remained untouched. Then one day, Louie Zaidman, a middle-aged bachelor, bought a package. A month passed, and Louie bought another. By now, the yentas were whispering to each other, “What was the ‘feigeleh’ doing with women’s private-ware?”

Finally, my grandfather got up the courage to ask.

“Goldsmith,” he answered, “there’s only one use for those shmattes. Every time I polish my Buick, they leave a wonderful shine. Now go tell your patrons that if Abe Goldsmith can sell sanitary napkins to a bachelor, he can sell them to a balaboste who wants to wax her floor.”