Welcome back to “How Should I Know?”—the advice column that used to run on a regular basis until, as a cost-cutting measure, it was decided that people do not need advice on a regular basis. Once in a while is plenty, they decided. Despite my advice to the contrary.

So my advice might not be something that people have to listen to. But what I lack in volume, I hope to make up for in volume.

Dear Mordechai,

During this chasunah season, what is the best way to lose weight?—C.Y.S.

Dear C.Y.,

Go to chasunahs. I know that’s counter-intuitive, but you actually get a lot of exercise at chasunahs, more than you would get eating at home. When you have a regular supper at home, do you dance between courses?

That’s why we should go—the dancing! This is what our chachamim recommended as well. Forget the social eating; this is social dancing! You walk a few miles in a circle with your knees bent the whole time, there’s a lot of clawing your way to the middle circle, there’s extra unnecessary sweating involved, the guy next to you is even sweating through his palms…

And you’re going to say, “Yeah, but that’s just a cardio workout. That’s not balanced. What about a muscle workout?”

But then when the kallah comes in for Keitzad Merakdim, you get to do push ups. It’s not for long, but you can keep taking another turn. Or continue doing it the whole time no matter who else is doing stuff around you.

And it’s really good for your motivation, because there are no excuses. Everyone is watching you. So you can’t just do one push up really really slowly while everyone at the wedding waits for their turn to get into the middle (“RRRRRRR…ONE!”) and then make excuses about how the floor isn’t good and that you can usually do way more, because the music is too loud. No one hears your excuses. Also this will be on video forever: Your one push up.

And then you can keep coming into the circle with every group that has their little performance. You get to jump rope, put people on your shoulders, do that Russian dance that’s mostly deep squats… It’s a great workout! You can even join the chosson for his awkward little dance. Make it more awkward. Or less awkward. The kallah’s thinking, “Well, turns out my chosson can’t dance. But he’s better than that guy! And I never have to see this again!”

Of course, none of this helps if you’re trying to lose weight for a wedding so you look good in the pictures. Unless you suggest they do pictures at the end of the wedding. True, everyone will be disheveled and sweaty. But I really think wedding photos would be more fun and memorable if they took them at the end anyway. They’d tell more of a story. What happened to his jacket? Why are they wet? Why is everyone covered in glitter? And so on. The only downside of doing pictures then is that all the kids by the end of a wedding are either asleep or crazy hyper.

Also, for any of this to work as a workout, you really can’t eat. So it has to specifically be weddings that you’re not invited to.

“Who was the guy struggling to do a second push up in the middle of the dancing circle?”

“Nobody knows. I thought he was on your side.”

You can drink water, though. Which someone will helpfully bring to the middle of the dancing circle.

“This is for the chosson.”

“The chosson didn’t just do his third pushup. Ever.”

Dear Mordechai,

My wife and I keep having arguments about who should shovel the snow. She thinks she does it more, and I think I do it more. How do we avoid these arguments in the future?—YJ

Dear Y.,

The thing about shoveling snow is that when you’re doing it, it feels like forever. But when you’re inside the house and the other person is doing it, you’re like “You’re back already?! Are you done?”

“No, but I was outside forever.”

For years, this was a point of contention for us, because it’s not like there’s a point in both of us going out together, but my wife likes shoveling as soon as possible because it’s easiest to shovel if you do it right away and the snow isn’t pressed down yet from people’s footprints, except for yours and whichever neighborhood youths have paraded up to your door to ask if they could shovel. And I like waiting at least until it’s finished snowing because being a parent has taught me that you don’t clean until the kids are finished playing. So my wife always went out first, while I worked in the house, and then I went out to find that there wasn’t much left to do, and then I came inside to an annoyed wife.

Also, it turns out that no matter what system we use, snow shoveling makes people irritable.

So finally, after years of this, we hit upon an idea: Get two shovels. Now we can go out and shovel together, unless our son has taken one of them to go knock on neighbors’ doors.

But no one thinks of this. Multiple shovels! No one has multiple brooms in their dining room. And some people need it.

And it’s a great sholom bayis saver! There’s nothing like going outside with your wife and getting yelled at every other minute for throwing snow where she just shoveled.

So it’s a work in progress. Lately, we’ve been taking different areas, so that one of us, say, works on the driveway or stairs, and the other one digs out the car on the street. Neither of us wants to do that second thing because the snow is five times as deep there as it is anywhere else, because the snow plow driver isn’t worried about getting yelled at by the wife.

Have a question for “How Should I Know?” Send it in. As long as you’re not in a major rush to get it answered.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].