Everyone knows that God made a covenant with Abraham that gave Israel to the Jews in exchange for a little foreskin.

What most people don't know is that God also agreed to give us Florida. This is why Jews move down there when they retire. We don't have a choice. It was part of the original deal. The Christians got Martha's Vineyard; we got Boca Raton.

This being the case, I wasn't all that surprised when my parents told me they bought a place in the Sunshine State. My dad had been in semiretirement for several years, and my mother was not far behind. Besides, my dad was a golfer and my mother made a mean brisket, which meant they satisfied the official Jewish retirement prerequisites. They were one Lincoln Continental and two zuzim away from qualifying for a little place in the Palm Beach area on a golf course with their own orange tree and an alligator in the backyard.

Giddy with the prospect of all-you-can-eat 4 p.m. dinner buffets for $2.99, they had one foot out the door when I warned them that they needed to do some prep work before they moved to the promised land of milk, honey, and Metamucil.

As two hip, artistic, culturally-sophisticated New Yorkers, they were under-prepared for life in the matza ball soup capital of the world.

Of course, as a middle-aged Jew still in my formative guilt years, I didn't have all the info they needed, either. So I picked up Florida for Dummies and Alter Kockers and found some handy tips for helping my parents acclimate to life in the panhandle.

According to the book, my folks needed to focus on the following:

• Playing games — To truly enjoy retired life in Florida, make sure to learn shuffleboard, pinochle, and how to work three bingo boards at a time.

• Driving — You must learn how to drive 20 miles under the speed limit, with your head six inches below the steering wheel.

• Clothing — Men: pants that fit snugly under your armpits. Women: bold prints in bright pastels. Polyester pantsuits with short sleeves and a tropical palm motif are always a good choice. Donate your black clothes. Black is for funerals — not a good message to send in a place where everyone is over 70.

• Dining out — When you go out to eat, remember to empty the basket of dinner rolls on the table into your handbag before you leave, eat all the food, and then complain that it wasn't cooked properly (and don't forget to take the packets of Splenda).

• Voting — This is your right as a U.S. citizen and you are entitled to do this for as long as you can drive (which in Florida is well into your late 90s). Words to know: Chads — the tiny bits of paper left over from punching a ballot when you vote. Ballot — the thing left after you punch out the chads. Don't worry about either the ballot or the chad; they very rarely count.

• Sex — This is only for men who have outlived their wives. There are two of them.

Satisfied now that my parents were adequately informed to make a new life for themselves as Social Security card-carrying Floridians, I bid them adieu and mazal tov on their new home and reminded them to stay out of the sun and watch out for alligators and honey bees, but not to worry about wasps: They retire to Connecticut.