My name is Ethel Flamerod, and I'm....

... a JellOholic.

There, I said it.

I can't believe it's come to this. Most of my life, I needed alcohol like a lokh in kop. I had my first taste of hard liquor on my eighteenth birthday. I was served drinks in teensy little glasses called shots. I thought they were like cocktail noshes, little snippets of flavor without a lot of substance. I figured it would take about ten of the little drinklets to fill up a glass, so I enjoyed several of them in rapid succession-- a strawberry shortcake, lemon drop, chocolate kiss, and something called "151". After that, things got a little fertummelt. I remember almost nothing. I vaguely recall trying to remove my glitter nail polish, which apparently was hampered by the fact that I hadn't actually put any liquid polish remover on the cotton balls. I awakened to find that my tongue was inexplicably black, my hair was in dredlocks, and my fingernails were obscured by long, wispy strands of white cotton. I looked like a ongepotchket muppet.

I vowed never to drink again, and I haven't. Unless you count slurping. Do you count slurping? 'Cuz ever since I tasted my first Jell-O shot, I've been slurping like a freser. I found a recipe for those delicious Malibu shots, which taste like globs of tropical heaven, and the last week has been a haze of blue coconut excess. Last night, I showed up at the HEAT meeting with a trayful of shots, half of them already empty. My dear HEAT friends, bless their hearts, immediately held an impromptu intervention. Meshuggenah Earl, it turns out, is a former shikker, and he's offered to take me to one a' them AA meetings tomorrow morning, after I sober up a bit.

Oy-oy-oy! I am such a farshtinkener. Forgive me, readers. Forgive me, fellow Helfans. I'm done with the Jell-O for good... except for what's already in the fridge. What, I should throw out perfectly good food when people are starving?

Justice Kagan: Come out of the closet!!!

Today, I was watching CNN's coverage of Elena Kagan's confirmation, and, as I saw image after image of the diminutive Justice-to-be, standing in the long shadow of just about every other human in her vicinity, I had a stunning realization: This woman is no ordinary Jewish legal genius. My instincts told me that Elena Kagan is actually a fellow Helfan!

I jumped on the computer to confirm my suspicion that Ms. Kagan was sired by a little person who didn't stick around long enough to be a father to her (in other words, an elf masquerading as a human). To my dismay, I read that her father was very much in the picture throughout her life, and since no mention was made of his height, I had to assume he was not unusually sized.

At that point, my despair was as heavy as my bubbe's matzoh balls. Could it possibly be that *gasp* my helfandar had failed me for the first time? I decided to do more research. Can you believe that there's not a single picture of Daddy Kagan anywhere on the Internet? As the youngsters say these days, "Woot, woot!" Clearly, this has gotta be a massive cover-up. I'm telling you: she is a Helfan sistah with a different mistah!

Justice Kagan, I urge you to come out of the closet and proudly declare your Helfanity to the world! Don't hide anymore. It's 2010. It's about time that the Supreme Court became truly inclusive -- not just of different genders and races, but also of specieseses!



And maybe you could nudge your new colleague, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to come out of the closet, too? 'Cuz girl, no way that chick is human!