I just emailed a tennis friend to say I could indeed play later this afternoon, but first I was taking the dogs for a kike.Of course, I meant hike and not kike, but I snorted with laughter all the same. And, even though it was a politically-incorrect typo/snort combination, it meant today is already, by far, way more promising than yesterday – the most boring day on record.
The term kike, while terribly derogatory, originates from the Yiddish word "keikl" which translates back to "circle" in English. Apparently, the whole kike thing hails back to Ellis Island. Jewish immigrants, who were either illiterate, or had trouble with Roman English lettering, or were just plain pissed off after being on a cruise ship full of Torah thumpers for weeks on end, had a problem marking their immigration documents with an "X" because they associated an "X" with the whole Christianity thing. So they put a "keikl", or a circle instead. And who could blame them.
In fact, some of the Jewish people were so fucking happy to be in pre-Bush administration America, they took things one step further by drawing two eyes and a great, big grin in the keikl and shouting, mazel tov!
And that, boys and girls, is how we ended up with the universal symbol of happiness – the smiley face.
Those crazy kikes kill me. I'll need an Advil after we get back.
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