Mordechai’s Mailbag: Answers to your Passover Questions

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Q: I’m cleaning out my kitchen, and I found two slices of frozen pizza. Should I split up the two slices among my 8 kids, or go to the store and buy MORE pizza so no one will feel left out?

This week, in honor of the holiday, I am presenting some Passover questions sent in by several confused readers:

Q: Where on Earth did my kids hide the afikoman?

A: I have no idea. The kids have an entire year to figure out where they’re going to hide it, and you have until midnight to find it on 2+ cups of wine. And this is bearing in mind that, the night before, you couldn’t find ten pieces of bread that your wife hid in plainly obvious spots, such as right in the middle of the living room floor sitting on a napkin.

Q: Where on Earth did my kids hide the afikoman?

Q: Um… I’m talking about last year’s afikoman. I still haven’t found it.
A: Oh. Have you considered moving?

Q: Also, I hid it myself.
A: How much did you have to drink?

Q: Um, 4 cups?
A: This is why we clean for Passover.

Q: I’ve been cleaning forever, and I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.
A: Sorry, you have to put that in the form of a question.

Q: Okay. I’ve been cleaning forever, and I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere?
A: Yes. And to that I would suggest cleaning your car. Cars are the most satisfying thing to clean by far, as far as amount of actual chometz found per time spent cleaning. We’re talking good, old-fashioned chometz – enough to feed your family for a week if they somehow lock themselves in. For example, my minivan has 18 cup holders, and every single one has something in it, and not necessarily a cup. And my minivan doesn’t even seat 18 people.

Sure, there’s some chometz in your car that you will never get to in a million years. For example, the sadistic anti-Semites who design minivans put several holes on the floor under the seats that are too small to get your finger into, but big enough to hold super snacks. In fact, I think they wedge the super snacks in right at the factory. Plus, the vacuum cleaner cord refuses to stretch all the way to your car no matter how many extension cords you add, and your car wasn’t designed to have an adult lie on the floor and reach under the seat with a vacuum hose. But cleaning your car always takes about the same amount of time, and when you’re done, it’s so clean that you want to make people take off their shoes before getting in.

“Alright, we’re here!”
“Where are my shoes? You told me to leave them right outside the car!”

Q: I got rid of all the chometz in my house, and I just now realized that I don’t have any bread for bedikat chometz?
A: Yes. But that’s okay; you can borrow some from a neighbor. Just remember to return it when you’re done.

I don’t want it; you take it.”

Alternatively, you can check under your kids’ car seats. This is something that a lot of people forget to do, and, especially with all these new car-seat laws that keep kids in there until they’re eight years old or 80 pounds, whichever comes first (CHILD OBESITY NOTE: 80 pounds comes first), you’re bound to have enough food to hide chometz in all the houses on your entire block!

Make sure to tell your neighbors before you do this.

Q: I’m cleaning out my kitchen, and I found two slices of frozen pizza. Should I split up the two slices among my 8 kids, or should I go to the store and buy MORE pizza, so no one will feel left out?
A: I would say to keep cleaning, because you never know what you’re going to find. Last year, my mother was going through her freezer, and she found a package with two pieces of fish in it, so she set them aside for supper. Then she kept going, and she found two more pieces of fish. And then two more. By the time she was done, there was enough fish for everyone. Apparently, that brand of fish comes with two more pieces than they usually need. And in the meantime, I was going through my freezer, and I found eight packages of two hot dogs.

Q: What scientific advances have been made recently in the field of Passover cleaning?
A: I will answer that with one word: Robonaut 2. Okay, so that’s 2 words, if you count the “2”. But on the other hand, “Robonaut” is not a word, as far as I’m aware. (My spell check agrees.) Robonaut, or robotic astronaut, is a robot developed by NASA to go up onto the International Space Station and work alongside the astronauts, doing mundane tasks that the astronauts can’t be bothered to do.

Q: Like what?
A: Like scrub the floors. Not many of us think about that. We all just assumed that no one had to clean the floors, because no one walks on the floors. It’s not like the astronauts are just dropping things on the floor. It’s not like they have kids walking around up there with cookies. And they’re not eating regular food either. You can’t just open a can of peas in zero gravity. All their food comes in toothpaste tubes, like… well, like toothpaste. (And applesauce.)

“Yuck! This tastes like toothpaste!”
“It is toothpaste. The applesauce comes in a green tube.”

Q: What does Robonaut look like?
A: From the waist up, it looks like a buff person wearing a helmet. From the waist down, we’re not sure what it looks like, because NASA is still working on that. They’re going to send up the legs at a later date.

Q: So why don’t the astronauts clean the station?
A: Because they’re like, “We’re astronauts. We didn’t go through millions of dollars worth of training to scrub floors.” So they float around all day having fights about who should clean up whose messes and who left the cap off the apple sauce. In fact, the International Space Station hasn’t been cleaned since it was first sent up there in 1998. So NASA had to choose between training a cleaning professional to go into space or training astronauts to use a vacuum cleaner. So they made a robot.

Q: That does sound easier than training my kids. So when is Robonaut going to be available for home use?
A: Definitely not before they figure out how to make legs.

Q: Should I get one for my wife for Passover?
A: Actually, I would say to get it before Purim and avoid the rush. And then you can go around with it, delivering shalach manos, and confuse absolutely everyone that you meet.

“When did you have another kid? And why is he sweeping the sidewalk?”

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