Say Prunes In Yiddish

Why say cheese... 

... when you can say prunes?

Allow me to explain. Growing up, a relative term, considering I reached five feet and change at the age of 12 and stopped growing and then in the glorious stage known as "middle age" started shrinking, the whole "say cheese" before your photo's snapped has always been a keppy-scratcher. I mean, sure, I get it. Saying "cheese" is supposed to form your mouth into a smile. Some people follow orders and say "cheese." Some people are renegades and say bupkis. Some people don't just say "cheese." They say "say cheese." Whether they say it or think it, there's a good chance the photo will turn out cheesy, producing a half-smile, a weird grin, a look of "just take the damn photo and let me get on with my life." (You selfie-takers are excluded from this highly academic discussion.) In my family, my funny daddy loved to take photos and not once did he ever command us to "say cheese." There was no "say" involved. No mention of cheese. He just repeated the Yiddish word he grew up hearing before the camera clicked. And that word, nice people, was floymen, for prunes, or if I'm being accurate, something I do on occasion, plums, which turn into prunes when left out in the sun too long. Now that I think about it, he omitted the "o" in floymen... why, I can't tell you. He said flymen. Then we said flymen and started laughing, which pretty much guaranteed a funny photo of his family giggling, and what's better than that? There's a whole story about saying prunes for photos in the olden days... read it here if you're interested... but this is the only story about saying prunes in Yiddish. You're welcome.