yenta. noun. a woman who is a gossip or busybody.
ORIGIN 1920s: Yiddish, originally a given name.
That’s what Sylvia, my mom, has been saying as we listen to the news these days amidst the latest political scandal, naturally of a sexual nature. It seems whenever these things happen; their unthinkable, unacceptable and disgraceful attributes send everyone into a tizzy of outrage. The paradox to this is that whatever it is that is so “unspeakable” causes everyone not to stop speaking about it. And how can they not- because every time you turn on the TV or turn on your computer, or pick up a newspaper- it’s right there. As a matter of fact, while Sylvia and I were out having breakfast yesterday morning- we glanced at the TV monitor in the diner- and of course- this latest political sexual scandal was the news item for a good 15 minutes of airtime. That’s when she said again, the world has become a big fat yenta.
Sylvia does not even fully comprehend what exactly happened this time. She got that Schwarzenegger was having an affair with his housekeeper and that the other guy from the IMF, whom we never heard of, was attacking a hotel housekeeper. By the way, both these situations were a bit too coincidental to the illicit fantasy about housekeepers, don’t you think? But this new impropriety that involves tweeting is a bit confusing to her. All she understands is that a congressman has exposed his penis for the whole world to see. And to her dismay, he happens to be a Jew, which, to my mother is just unnecessary bad press for our tribe. She even tried to refute his being a Jew because after all, what Jewish man is named Anthony? Whatever his ethnicity, though, the fact remains that he took some pictures of his “weiner” and coincidently, his name is Weiner. He also had some lewd conversations about using it- but while he did take it out, he never actually put it in; the world of cyberspace is not that sophisticated, yet. All this is quite perplexing to my mother because even though she understands that he took pictures of his package she was quite surprised that it was with his phone. She’s a little bit out of touch with the capabilities of technology these days.
In my opinion, well my opinion is- when did we all become judge and jury? Are any of us impervious to a lack of foresight and wit at any point of our life? The last time I considered my character- I scored quite low on the perfection meter. This doesn’t mean I do not possess integrity and decency- it merely means I’m human. And thank goodness for that. So, lighten up, people- and stop being such yentas (even though the definition denotes a woman- men you are just as guilty).
What I really think is we are so relieved that there are others out there who can or have done stupider or just as stupid things as we have done and thankfully we can focus on their faults to take our mind off our own.
