B8

"Shmutz" is a Yiddish word that means grime or dirt. When I hear shmutz, it alarms me and I go into shmutz mode. For some reason I have a party in my mind about it like a 5 year old does when they hear the word poop for the first time.

Mothers and grandmas are constantly calling people out about shmutzing themselves at weddings and whenever I get the opportunity, I let people know if I find shmutz somewhere. People tend to be on the look out for shmutz at weddings and I’m a wedding photographer so I’m usually on the look out as well. It’s a formal setting where shmutz doesn’t belong…

Sometimes there isn’t shmutz around so I’ll walk behind someone and wipe their shoulders off with my hands and when they look at me, I tell them they had shmutz on themself. I like saying the word and if there isn’t shmutz anywhere I’ll make believe there is.

Last week, I was at a Jewish wedding, and the groom had deodorant on top of his suit jacket. I notified him about the shmutz, and we cleaned it.

I thought, hmm, everyone’s constantly talking about shmutz at weddings, maybe I need to invent "shmutz It," the shmutz remover.

This led me to my next idea about a Jewish wandering goat who ends up in Italy. While he’s in Italy, he opens up a bakery and begins mixing his milk with the Italian goats' milk, inventing a new cheese called Shmutzarella.