Yeah, so I guess it’s not The New Yorker…

It’s Alta (The New Yorker of the west). Altatude #20, 9/17/21.

(See how I didn’t use a headline like, My Pooh on Alta, or, Pooh on The New Yorker, because that’s the kind of professional I am.)

In order to submit cartoons to The New Yorker, you have to be able to take rejection. A lot of rejection. Taking rejection is character building. For example: your dad says he’s hungry for borscht and blintzes and you find the only store within thirty miles that has a homemade supply of both.

It doesn’t occur to you to ask what kind of blintzes. At the counter, you remember your grandmother casting aspersions on the gentile-ification of bagels with flavors like BLUEBERRY, so you’re not sure the cheese blintzes (with recommended BLUEBERRY sauce) will pass muster. You add a pound of the meat and another pound of the mushroom for back up. Only one kind of borscht, no problem there.

You announce the blintzes’ arrival to your father, beginning with cheese, but by the time you get to mushroom, your father has that stiff thin line of a mouth like he did when you drove the Ford Grenada through the back of the garage forty years ago. “I’ve never heard of meat or cheese blintzes.” You vouch for your blintzes– they are the real deal, everything in the supermarket was Russian– the signage, the people… You get the blintzes out of the fridge to show him.

You weren’t thinking. Now, now he can see how much you paid. “It’s a crime,” he shakes his head. “I used to get cheese blintzes at Trader Joe’s, six for $3.49.”

“I had no idea they had them at Trader Joe’s, Dad. I’ll get them there from now on.”

Your sister climbs on the bandwagon, “Dad, these are going to taste fifty times better than Trader Joe’s.” You seriously hope not because Trader Joe’s is much more convenient, the money aside.

Dad looks a little sad. You hug him. He sighs, “Now I’ve hurt your feelings. You did your best and–”

“You did not hurt my feelings. Really.” A person who has 300+ rejected New Yorker cartoons does not have a speck of a feeling… about blintzes.

If you have feelings, you might like to adopt one of my homeless cartoons. Matted originals are for sale in my shoppe.