Jewish, Irish, Italian Guilt

Jews and Irish make ideal marriage partners because they both lead guilt driven lives.

The Irish are guilty forever because they left their mother's womb. The Jews are guilty because they showed up. Italian Catholic men have their share of guilt except when it comes to cheating on their wives. That's part of the culture.

But the Italians know that a stiff schlong has no conscience and have no problems with that notion. But then you don't have be Italian to live in that style, except for the goody two shoes guys or guys with erectile dysfunction. But Viagra doesn't overcome guilt.

One of the saving graces of being in the Army is that I never felt guilty. Stupid often but guilty, never. Someone else was making the good and bad decisions.

The Princess made up for my guilt free Army time lapse. The Princess drove guilt into me like I was the nail and she was the hammer. She remembered, until the day she died, every asshole thing I ever did and I did many.

The good stuff was totally forgotten, surely not mentioned. The Princess was the ultimate co-alcoholic and booze was a momentary relieving virtue for me but then guilt took over.

Being a traveling schmatta salesman did have its strong points. I was in charge of my life driving that dress laden car,but guilt helped my drive to excel.

There I was, traveling with my typewriter banging out thank you notes every night in my motel room, to the buyers who would look at my line of dresses and sorry I missed you notes to those who weren't in. To the the rude assholes who effectively told me to fuck off went a conciliatory note as well.

Those last notes were tough to write.

If I got blasted instead of writing those notes, guilt stepped in and I did double penance the following night. I hated writing those fucking notes but hated the prospect of failing even more.

Yeah guilt is a great driver. Guilty if going a day without a sale. Guilty if getting in the bag instead of writing notes. Guilty of having 'going to hell' thoughts by looking at a great looking gal and wishing I could bang her.

No cuddling.

Being around the oil and gas business, being a car salesman, being a stock salesman or a private equity entrepreneur were a constant challenge to telling the truth and avoiding guilt.

One time that guilt never came into play was when I sold a previously foundered horse who had become a stumbler, at an auction in Iowa. It was my turn to fuck the Iowa farmers who had fucked this ignorant Bronx Jew for four miserable years.

~