“Swoosh.”  A baby blue satin yarmulke inscribed with Morton and Sylvia’s Wedding, June 1, 1991, flew across the dining room and into the plastic trash bin.

“Leon, what are you doing?”

“Tossing yarmulkes,” Leon said as though he were recycling yesterday’s Times.

Margie noted the eight inch piles of kippot and strained to see if any, God forbid, contained burnt orange yarmulkes from their own wedding forty-six years before.

“Are you allowed to just throw them away?”

“No law against it. Checked with the rabbi. I’m fed up with having to pick them up off the floor every time I open the breakfront cabinet.”

“How are you deciding which to keep and which to discard?”

“Degrees of separation.” Leon had anticipated Margie’s question. Margie wrinkled her brow.  “The more distant the relationship, the more likely to get tossed.”  Her brow relaxed.

Margie picked up a canary yellow yarmulke from the table and read the inscription. “So, Bat Mitzvah of Susan Ellen Goldstein, September 30, 2002, a school friend of Emily’s, would get tossed in favor of Bar Mitzvah of Mark Stewart Glazer, August 14, 2015, your first cousin’s son?”

“Exactly.”

“No other considerations?”

“Well, esthetics counts. I like the colorful, hand-woven kippot from Gutemala and may keep some of those. On the other hand, yarmulkes with sports logo…automatically relegated to the bin.”

“Have you had to make any tough calls yet?”

“Interesting you should ask. I threw away a yarmulke In Honor of Henry and Sophie’s Wedding, March 5, 1966.”

“You didn’t.”

“They’re dead fifteen years, at least. What’s the point?”

“Leon, they were my favorite aunt and uncle. What will I have to remember them?”

“Nothing, anymore.  Sorry.”  Leon wasn’t entirely sincere.  Margie’s angry expression turned sullen.

“Have you considered donating them to a shul or recycling them?”

“When I asked about donation, the rabbi offered to show me his stash.

“And what about the Good Will?”

“Ah.  Why didn’t I think of that?  There must be thousands of homeless in need of used yarmulkes.”  Leon emphasized his point by flinging In honor of Marvin Rosenberg’s Bar Mitzvah, January 2, 1999, just missing Margie’s head. Blue suede with a Yankees insignia.

“Leon, is there something you want to tell me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why are you all of sudden so concerned about our glut of yarmulkes?”

“I don’t know.  It just feels like it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“I just want to be organized.  Just in case.”

“In case you die?  It’s not like packing a bag and waiting for the bus.”

“Isn’t it?  It makes me feel better. I don’t want to be snuck up on.”

“You can’t escape.”

“I know.  I read the inscriptions to myself.  They leave me cold.  But then I remember. Who was at the affair.  How old I was. What Shelly Glickstein looked like in 1992 at her Bat Mitzvah. Stupid, stupid things. Leon began to sob.

Margie walked over to him past the mounds of yarmulkes, the white ones, the velvet ones, the leather ones, the gray, the maroon, the pastel pink.  She slowly lowered herself onto his lap.

“Wait here.”

Margie retreated to the kitchen, returned with a black Sharpie, and proceeded to inscribe the inside of a burnt orange kippah, In Honor of Margie and Leon’s Trash Day, December 20, 2019.

Leon placed the burnt orange yarmulke on his head and gently kissed his bride.