Cantankerously Yours 
My Inaugural Chudspah Awards
By Wendell Abern
Dear Flabbergastees,
As I have mentioned a few times in the past, chudspah is a marvelous Yiddish word that means a lot of nerve. Or gall. The Talmudic definition: a young man who murders his mother and father, then throws himself at the mercy of the court on the grounds he’s an orphan.
In doling out these much-deserved awards, I must confess that some of them – especially those that involved me personally – have left me so dumbfounded I feel like I belong in Wonderland with Alice.
1 – The sweet little old lady at Publix.
She was at least 90 years old. Perhaps 95. I was in front of her at the super market check-out counter, with a basket holding only four items. I was just putting them on the conveyor belt when she deftly wheeled her cart around me and started emptying her purchases, placing them on the belt in front of my groceries.
“Hey!” I shouted. “What am I, the invisible alien?”
No response.
Flabbergasted, I addressed the old woman, and as loud as I could, said, “Pardon me, madam, but do you think your age entitles you to be rude, inconsiderate and boorish?”
She turned to me, smiled sweetly and said, “Yes.” Unruffled, she asked the cashier, “And how much will that be, sweetie?”
I wish I knew her name. I’d create a special chudspah plaque in her honor.
2 – Charlie Sheen.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Easy target. However, forget about Mr. Sheen’s sophomoric whining and delusional caterwauling for a moment and think about his chudspah: He called Chuck Lorre stupid!
Chuck Lorre created the show, “Two and-a-Half Men,” which propelled Charlie Sheen from star to superstar. When last I looked, “Two and-a-Half Men” was the second-highest rated comedy on TV. Right after “Big Bang Theory.” Which Chuck Lorre also created!
Yet Charlie Sheen calls him stupid. Now that’s chudspah. One can only assume that if Sheen ever plays the role of Macbeth, he’ll refer to Shakespeare as an idiot.
3 – Ross Ohlendorf, pitcher, Pittsburgh Pirates.
Last year, Mr. Ohlendorf won one game and lost eleven. For which he was paid $439,000. His ERA, or earned run average, was a bit over four. (Earned run average indicates the number of earned runs a pitcher will give up in nine innings. An ERA of three or less is considered terrific; four is at best adequate.)
One win. One. The kind of year that usually results in a pitcher being sent to the minor leagues. The kind of year analogous to a salesman losing all but one of his accounts. The kind of year for which you and I would have been fired.
Ross Ohlendorf asked for a raise!
Wait! It gets better!
The Pirates offered him a raise! But “only” to 1.4 million dollars.
Wait! It just keeps getting better, folks!
Ohlendorf turned it down!
It wasn’t enough!
Setting the chudspah bar as high as the murderer who cried “orphan,” Ohlendorf was asking for 2.025 million dollars! (He must have assumed
he’d win five games this year.)
They went to arbitration. When a professional baseball player and his management go to arbitration, one or the other wins; there is no compromise.
And the three-judge panel ruled in Ohlendorf’s favor!
(Down here in Wonderland, Alice and I are preparing an addition to the Talmud, which we call The Ohlendorf Amendment.)
4 – K-V Pharmaceutical Company.
After obtaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a pregnancy drug, this St. Louis company raised its price for a single dose from $20 to $l,500. That is not a typo, folks. One thousand, five hundred dollars per dose. Chudspah, unbound.
(Alice, help! Where are you? Bring me some tea or something!)
5 – American Express.
This vaunted, omnipotent corporation rejected my application for a credit card when I opened a Costco account. According to them, my “consumer credit bureau score from Experian was too low.”
I looked up my Experian score, which was 742 and rated as “very low risk” … and that my credit to debt ratio was 98%.
I wrote AMEX a letter, explaining that Experian had written, “Factors in your credit line indicate you have excellent credit.”
I resisted asking what their employees had been smoking when they interpreted my scores, and asked them to explain my rejection.
Instead, five days later, I received another letter from AMEX, telling me I had qualified for an American Express Senior Gold Card.
I called, and talked to Robert.
“Is this card in response to the letter I wrote?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know. That’s a different department.”
Robert then explained that AMEX has 23 different credit cards, and after listening patiently for a minute, I told him to sign me up for the Senior Gold Card. He did, telling me their response would be in my e-mail soon.
One hour later, they rejected me again.
I called and talked to Evelyn.
“You were rejected,” she explained, “because you had applied for the Costco Card.”
“Oh.” I stifled a laugh. “If your company didn’t want me to apply for a Gold Card, why would they send me an application for one?”
“Sir, that’s a different department. I wouldn’t know.”
I took a deep breath. “Evelyn, you and I are going to bring back vaudeville.”
“What?”
“Who’s on first?”
Silence.
“I get it. You want to be Costello. Okay, I’ll be Abbott.”
Long pause.
“We’ll open in Schenectady, at the old Palace.“
Evelyn hung up on me.
I have since obtained my complete, three-part credit rating from “freecreditrating.com.” After the phrase, “Your credit rating,” they wrote “Great.” Experian now had me at 762; Equifax at 775, and Trans Union at 805. Under their numerical graph, they had written, “You are highly likely to qualify for a loan with an attractive interest rate.”
Instantly, I wrote a letter to Mr. Ken Chenault, the CEO of American Express, asking for an explanation of my rejections and included a copy of my previous letter to them and a copy of my credit report, labeling them Exhibits A and B.
I also mentioned that he is being considered for chudspah executive of the year.
I will keep you posted.
Cantankerously Yours,
Wendell Abern
Wendell Abern can be reached at .