Archive for the Short Stories Category
Growing up, whenever I entered my home, I braced myself for the inevitable yelp from Nagymama, “PAPUCS! PAAAAPUCS!”
“Papucs” is Hungarian for “slipper”. Any time you came into my house, you had to lose your shoes and don the papucs. It didn’t ever help me that I’ve always been tall, so by age 14 I was already 5’ft10” with a 10-1/2 shoe size. Papucs never came in sizes lager than 9 from the El Cheapo Store, so my socked feet usually hung several inches over the back.
Thinking back on the papucs, I swear to god, she had 500 of these things! Dr. Seuse would have a field-day on my Nagymama:
Old papucs. New papucs.
Red papucs. Blue papucs.
The thing is, no matter how many papucs Anyu would buy her, she would wear the oldest, nastiest pair with the cardboard sticking out of the bottom. Nothing would stop her from hemming and fixing and gluing and sewing and nailing and taping the damned $2.99 papucs.
At a certain point, we developed a serious papucs problem.
Nagymama had started to get up in age, so she kept on losing her balance. It didn’t help that...
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It was always a big deal whenever my dad called. I always knew he was on the phone when my mom was on our old rotary phone and the German Shepard next door would start howling in tune to her screaming.
That's the thing about my family - they would be great stage performers because they sure do know how to make their voices project. In my family, there is only one rule to arguing in Hungarian: The person that speaks the loudest always wins the argument, regardless of being right or wrong.
So, this particular day, I was home from kindergarten and my mom saw me peaking around the corner. She sighed and held out the phone.
"Stephie, talk to your azz-hole fadder."
I could hear his mumbled voice protesting from the receiver.
I grabbed the phone and struggled to hold it to my ear with both hands. Boy, those old rotary phones sure where solid.
"Hallo?" I asked shyly.
“Szia, Stephie.”
It was still weird to hear such a deep voice, since I had no male influences in my family. I imagined a giant Bela Lugosi on the other line.
He quickly broke into his...
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My mom and dad got divorced when I was 2. I didn't really know much about my father, other than his voice. He had a really deep voice and a thick Hungarian accent.
I had never heard another man with a voice quite like his until I saw a tall handsome man on TV one day...tall and pale like my mom said my dad was...with straight dark hair and piercing eyes, like my mom said...so of course, my 4-year-old mind figured that Dad (Apu) was on TV.
That man was Bela Lugosi.
"Anyu! Apu is on the television!" I screamed to her whenever "Dracula" was on.
She smiled to herself. "Yes, Stephie, your fadder sure knows how to suck dah blood out of anything."
Obviously, I didn't see the irony her comment until today.
I feared the chipped, 1970s, spicy-mustard–colored bowl in our kitchen cabinet. It was used primarily for whisking eggs, making dough, and to measure out my haircut.
One day, I was walking through my kitchen, nagging my Nagymama for a Fudgesicle before dinner. After about five minutes of persistent whining, she reached in the freezer and handed me the frozen treat. I ripped the white waxed paper victoriously, but my bliss was cut short when I spotted the notorious bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. For a moment, I hoped that Nagymama was just going to make us some Hungarian crepes (Palacsinta) for dessert, but I dismissed the thought when I saw the rusty, green-handled scissors adjacent to the bowl.
I almost dropped my ice cream. This was a trick! They were getting ready to give me a haircut!
I looked for a hiding spot. I had tried everything in the past: hiding behind the shower curtain in the bathtub, standing in the back of my mom’s closet with her blue bathrobe draped over me and cowering behind cardboard boxes of toys under my bed. For whatever reason,...
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The animation that started it all...
As broadcast on the Nicktoons network and on the FRONT PAGE of YouTube, MySpace, Crackle, and Channel Frederator! Nagymama has also been screened at the University of the Arts Film & Animation Festival; Nicktoons Film Festival; 4th Annual Tehran International Animation Festival; Garden State Film Festival; Ottawa International Animation Festival Chez Ani; Milkboy Film Festival; Media Arts Council Home Grown Film Festival; Cupcake Bandit Film Festival & Dozens of other festivals throughout the world!
