Hello?

Oh my god! A ghost! Holy shit!

Don’t be so scared. It’s only me, your great-grandma.

Bubbe Mireleh? Is that really you?

Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to check on my descendants, all the grandchildren of my youngest son. I had a wonderful time with your cousins just now. One in medical school, the other getting a computer science degree! What naches I feel, at how well they’re doing! And so, I come now to ask, how are you, bubbeleh? Vos macht a yid?

Well, um. Actually, you’ve caught me at kind of a strange time in my life…

Oh! You’re using a sewing machine!

Well, yeah.

I had one, a treadle Singer. That machine was a miracle. I made clothes for my children on it. And before that, when I first came to America, when I was young and unmarried, I worked in a corset factory.

That’s so funny, I didn’t know that. I’m actually making a corset right now.

WHAT?

I—thought you might find it cool that I—

Miss Rosenberg! My own great-granddaughter! Oy vey iz mir, tell me now why you do such a thing! In the year—2024, it is? A corset? Someone is paying you for this!?!!

…No…

Then someone is forcing you? They have locked the doors, like they used to do in the corset factory, so we could not get out if there was a fire? And you have to make water under the table in a bucket without stopping your sewing for one second? And the foreman, that schmuck Mr. Spinks, walks by and pinches your tuches and then hocks his sticky tobacco spit onto the floor, so you might slip on it and die that way instead, if there is not a fire?

Um. No? I’m doing it for fun?

Fun?! Explain to me what is fun about a corset. Not fun to wear—not fun at all to sew—I would know! Explain, mameleh, you’re making your bubbe all verklempt with this. Corset!?

Well, uh. It’s kind of like—an aesthetic appreciation, you know. I’m really interested in the history of Western women’s fashion, and I’ve been binge-watching Downtown Abbey recently and was admiring the silhouettes of the pre-war period, and I thought it would be an interesting project to construct one by hand, especially because I would need one as a foundation garment if I wanted to sew or wear any other clothing from the period, so—

Enough. This is narishkeit. Bubbeleh, my fingers were red and raw for many years, my back ached, nine hours a day, six days a week, corset corset corset for the rich gentile women of Detroit to parade around in, in order that I had money to live, to find a husband, to have American children who would grow up and be successful and not have to live like I did, fresh off the boat. You’re not tired enough after your successful job in the day that you have to come home at night and sew a farkakte corset?

Bubbe, I didn’t want to mention it, but I actually don’t have a job right now.

How can such a thing be possible? Are you not intelligent and hard-working, like your cousins?

Well, I’m trying to be a writer, actually.

A writer?! My great-granddaughter, a writer? And you can make money this way?

Not really. I’m kind of… really super broke. You know what they say… Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. I guess four, in this case…

Who says that? I don’t say that! Never! I say that I come to this country and endure hardship like you have no idea, so that my descendants can be successful and happy and good Jews! Tell me you go to shul?

Of course—on the High Holidays. But I think all the Downton Abbey cancels that out, honestly. I feel myself getting more goyische each episode.

Oy gevult.

Yeah, you can say that again. Honestly, now I don’t really want to finish making this stupid thing. You’re right, Bubbe. What am I even doing?

You’re not topstitching evenly, I tell you one thing. And your boning channels are crooked, and your thread tension is a mess, and these hems? Feh! My faygeleh… this corset, when you’re done, you plan to wear it often?

Probably not. Because in addition to being unemployed, I’m also single. And… well, I wasn’t going to tell you this either, but the corset is… also definitely kind of a sex thing, if I’m being honest.

… A sex thing? Why did you not say so? I understand! I completely understand. I see, I see now, that you must finish your corset! May you wear it in good health with a good man—oh, the times your mama’s zeyde and I had, with me in my brand new corset fresh from the factory! I never felt so beautiful! And if that’s what it takes for me to have a great-great-granddaughter one day, so be it! Zei gezunt!