Once upon a time the telephone company – yes, bubbelah, it was the telephone company - had a little slogan, reach out and touch someone and it sounded warm and cuddly and not at all like a ploy to get you to run up your phone bill. Actually, it was a kind of neat idea even though the phone company’s motives smacked of commercialism.

The reaching out and touching somebody part has always intrigued me, although like many people I don’t put the thought into action. However, my recent internet experience vis-à-vis Michael and Arnold has shown me the error of my ways and I hope to do lots more outreach in the future.

To begin at the beginning – which is sometimes a good place to begin although - if like me – you just love happy endings, starting from the end can give your reader a glow of happiness right at the start. Oy, a little confusion here or maybe just a bad pun. Anyway, I had decided to open an ecommerce web site and I wanted to call it Tchotchke Heaven. It was to be a buy/sell place for all the treasures we buy because we can’t live without them and then have to sell them so we can buy more. In my mind, it was the Jewish answer to EBay and some wag once told me I should call it Oybey but I was set on Tchotchke Heaven and I couldn’t find anyone who knew how to spell Tchotchke. The I remembered a site I had once stumbled into called Yiddishkeit and I stumbled again and there it was – the real tchotchke and not one of those silly transliterations like chachaka or chasheka – and delighted, I contacted the site owner who, you from your saichel have already figured out, was Michael Fein.

I emailed Michael to thank him and he replied with a very nice email and I asked if there was anything I could do and he - in his self effacing way- suggested a small contribution and despite its size, we continued our correspondence. I was impressed with Michael’s global knowledge and we had discussions via email and most of the time we were in agreement but when we weren’t we both were passionate about our beliefs. I was also impressed with Arnold’s wonderful graphics and I would frequently call my husband, Seth, to the computer to admire Arnold’s work. Michael’s emails were easier; I could just print them out.

Then we moved on. I don’t remember whether I picked up the phone one might and it was Michael, or he picked up the phone and it was me. It didn’t really matter – we reached out a lot that night and on subsequent nights and made some phone companies very happy. I was delighted with Michael and by association, Arnold as well. Rosco didn’t come into the picture until later on.

When Michael told me that he and Arnold were planning a detour through New York City to meet with us, I was very happy. Although Michael minimized it, these two terrific guys drove from Maryland to New York and then on to Montreal on the same day. They said that they wouldn’t espouse the Maryland/New York short cut except for the fact that we were the destination and we felt the same way.

We spent the afternoon and evening together – the four of us – and it was like we had known each other all our lives although Seth and I have more mileage than Michael and Arnold – No, dumkop, not combined – it’s bad enough each one. We have two dogs, Lulu and Daisy and they have Rosco whom they obviously missed but Daisy tried to make up for their nostalgia by licking them ad nauseum. My words, not theirs - they all seemed to be having a great time.

Now for the serious part. I feel that Seth and I have made friends for life – in fact, if we ever get time to take a vacation, we are probably going North to Montreal. And all this from reaching out to touch someone. I know they have made friends through the Megillah but this is a new experience for me. I’ve been inspired to email someone whose article I especially liked or disliked as the case my be and I’ve received some interesting emails in return. Some people don’t answer and that’s all right although I think that Pierce Brosnan could have told me he couldn’t meet me at the Plaza when he came to New York. My time is valuable, too.

I guess what I’m trying to say in my farmisht way, is thank, you Michael and Arnold for helping to open up another world. You’re a couple of menschen or to borrow from another ethnic group, as Tony Soprano would say, you are both stand-up guys.