Corona: Bar Mitzva Boy Totally Crushed By Being Unable To Humiliate Self In Front Of Friends

“Oh, boy, yeah, dodged a bullet there,” he declared in the presence of his disappointed parents, a little too loudly. “Just crushed.”

Jerusalem, April 13 – A local teenager confessed he is oh, yeah, absolutely let down at the current pandemic depriving him of the opportunity to mark his coming-of-age by declaiming a stupid homily in the presence of family and friends who have to pretend to be interested or impressed.

Avi Tal, who turned 13 last week, confessed his bitter disappointment today that he will neither perform a slow-as-molasses, stilted reading from the Torah for an impatient synagogue congregation, nor deliver an address to a room full of guests who just want to get past the awkwardness and eat dessert already.

“Oh, boy, yeah, dodged a bullet there,” he declared in the presence of his disappointed parents, a little too loudly. “Just crushed.”

“Coronavirus better not cancel any other things I’ve been looking forward to, like going back to school after Passover,” he added, with another glance at his parents.

Tal voiced additional dismay at not getting the chance to pose for photographs with every member of his extended family, and to have the onset of the most awkward stage of his life documented for posterity in an album. “I was so excited by the idea of Aunt Sandra, who smells really strongly of patchouli or something, nuzzling up to me for pictures,” he admitted. “And my dad’s old friend from college, what’s his name, the cigar-smoking dude who treats me like a toddler and thinks I still like things I once talked about at a birthday party eight years ago. Good God, he probably would have gotten me another Ninja Turtles-themed gift. Holy crap. What a relie- I mean what an unfortunate turn of events.”

The bar mitzva boy allowed that some aspects of the canceled celebration warrant more disappointment than others. “I do think there are some positives,” he acknowledged. “For one thing, I don’t have to pretend to anyone’s face, or in thank-you cards, that I appreciate their attendance or their good wishes more than I appreciate their gift. This whole pandemic thing does mean that I get fewer presents, but I think having to write many fewer thank-yous is a decent trade-off.”

“But yeah, what a bummer,” he averred, again within parental earshot. “I prepared so thoroughly and hard for that reading and that speech.”

More quietly, he added, “I was so hoping to get pelted by candies when I finished reading. I’m almost as crushed as when I found out they were canceling the recyclable collection in our area and I didn’t have the privilege of sorting the various kinds out from the regular trash.”

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