Whack-A-Mole

As a twelve-year-old, my mom drove my four-year-old sister, Barbara, and I to the town of Monticello.

I rode in the backseat of Mom’s spanking brand new, jet black Ford Fairlane.

And I was excited me—even though in the backseat, the smoke of my mom’s Newports enveloped and nauseated me.

I considered Monticello a “city,” because it had a whooping population of 5,000.

It also had the most luxurious hotel in the Borscht Belt—The Concord.

And a large penny arcade.

While my hometown of Woodridge had a measly 1,000 residents, the Avon Lodge and Krutman’s Candy Store with its sole pinball machine.

But in Monticello, for about two hours, my mom, my sister and I shopped, ate and kibbitzed.

Smiling, I strolled down Broadway munching on my hot, freshly baked bagel, smeared with Philly.

And if I was lucky, my mom granted me 15 minutes to play my favorite games in the Monticello Arcade.

Yes, pinball, skeet-ball and whack-a-mole.

I was far from a pinball wizard but I shook the Superman-themed pinball machine as if were a delusional patient in a mental hospital.

And I almost always avoided tilting it.

Yes, it was the machine where on the upper glass pane, had a painting of Superman slugging, whacking and punching Hitler in the face in front of a relieved Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson.

I loved that machine.

And I also loved boinking the varmits in the Whack-A-Mole machine.

Boing, boing, boing.

I gleefully struck the moles as their heads rose above the surface.

I loved the boinking sounds.

I grasped the plastic handle of the large red mallet, smashed the mole’s head and pretended that each mole was a person that had done me wrong.

Justice was sweet.

But I realized the futility of the game.

Time always ran out and moles just kept popping up.

But I felt the cathartic nature of smashing my enemies on their noggins.

Well, some 60 years later, I still play Whack-A-Mole.

And I still get that cathartic rush but I do it without the red mallet.

Now I play Whack-An-Anti-Semite with the keys on my keyboard.

When an ugly Jew-hating head rises above the surface of the media.

I whack.

I smack.

I smash.

I slap that head as hard as I can.

One day, it’s “Christian Nation” Marjorie Taylor Greene—whack, whack, whack.

The next day, it’s a teacher who posts her student’s pro-Hitler essays on the school’s bulletin board—smack, smack, smack.

The next day it’s a librarian who makes her students role play shooting Jews into ravines—whack, whack, whack.

The next day it’s “Death Con 3 to the JEWISH PEOPLE” Kanye—smack, smack, smack.

The next day, it’s Brooklyn Nets star, Kyrie Irving, posting anti-Semitic films on his Twitter feed—whack, whack, whack.

The next day, it’s anti-Semite, David dePape, who literally plays Whack-A-Mole with a hammer striking the head of 82 year old, Paul Pelosi, while yelling “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?—smack, smack, smack.

And I still realized the futility of this game of smacking Jew-hating moles as fast  as they keep popping up in American.

It seems like a losing battle.

A futile battle.

But it is a battle that must be fought.

When I hear the tapping sounds emanating from my keyboard.

And as I see my retaliatory words appear on my screen.

I imagine shaking, smashing and whacking these delusional Jew-hating bastards all the way to a mental hospital.