Fifth question: why am I eating LAST YEAR's matzah?

It's Soviet Think.

I went into my local grocery store (Harris Teeter at Timberlyne North) on the third day of Passover to buy more matzoh after our second-night seder wiped out the only box I'd managed to score this year.

There was not one square of matzoh in the house. I sought out the manager, Jim Vurnavakis - the same man who, when I recently asked him, "Where are the little shopping carts you used to have?" said, "They broke."

Understanding his Soviet mindset, I found his reply this time irritating but not surprising. "You're out of matzoh, are you getting more?" "I ordered three pallets of matzoh this year, no, I think that'll do us." "But there are many more days of passover." "Sorry, ma'am."

Cultural comparison: they NEVER run out of chocolate Easter Bunnies!!!

Long ago my ex- complained at the local Food Lion: "Why are you always running out of plain yogurt?" "Oh, we just can't keep that stuff on the shelves."

Soviet Think.

When Hannah and the Companionable Atheist came to town for Passover, the Companionable Atheist got a comfort-food hankering for chopped liver. It was out of stock everywhere, of course, because it was Passover and teeming hordes of Jews were suddenly craving chopped liver.

OK, no chopped liver to be had, he decided he'd learn to make his own.

He has a fancy phone that can find grocery stores and call them. He set his phone to calling around for chicken livers and we got no, no, no, yes. YES! We dashed off to that store.

There were no chicken livers. The manager stared at the empty spot. "This is where we usually have chicken livers." "But we just called you and you said you had them in stock." "They're usually here."

Setting aside the fancy phone for a minute, I cogitated in the old-fashioned manner, triangulating for a grocery store that (1) was not too far away; (2) catered to old-fashioned folks (i.e. was likely to stock chicken livers); (3) was not within typical Jewish stomping grounds (i.e. sudden Passover cravings wouldn't have cleaned out the stock). We zoomed over to a bedraggled Food Lion in the boonies near my home and there they were, $1.37 for a bucket. The chopped liver turned out just fine.

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