Shoot The Grease

1979

 

                Tonight’s entry is brought to you by way of a dinner I had last night. I went to my sister’s house and we had tomato soup, black bean patties with a sweet salsa, and broiled broccoli. We played a few games of Bam-Zot, and a few games of Yahtzee. We had dinner with my cousin whom the last time I saw her she was maybe a year old. I was 18 at the time and visited her and her family for they lived close to my home town, in fact my aunt and uncle still do, which means we could stay with them when we visit this spring. After dinner we played another game of Yahtzee and started catching up. My cousin told us a little about her job, and I dropped the following bomb on her about her father

                My father was a very strict marine, he expected us kids to be on our best behavior. We were for the most part pretty good children. Occasionally back in the 1970’s my parents would leave is with my aunt and uncle while they got away for a weekend. It was one of these weekends that I told my cousin about. I started by asking her “Do you know how much trouble your father got me into as a kid?” and I proceeded to tell her the following story.

                One time my parents dropped us off at your Mom and Dad’s house for the weekend and we all had supper together. I am not sure if you realize it but your parents used to be hippies and that was a direct contrast to the household we lived in. So when we spent the weekend with your parents we would have some new rebellious thing we would have picked up from them. One weekend we were dropped off on a Friday afternoon so our folks could drive up to Lake Tahoe and get their drink and gambling on, and just generally be a married couple without the burden of children. We had dinner together and my uncle dropped this at the dinner table “Shoot the Grease” my brother and I were lost but we found out back then that was slang for pass the butter. I thought it was hilarious. My brother and I were on our best behavior while my parents were away. We went to the beach and had a great time Saturday. We had pizza and enjoyed thoroughly the weekend without Aunt and Uncle. Mom and dad returned late Sunday night, and picked us up. We went home, and slept for school. The following evening we sat down for dinner, and I looked at my father and said “Shoot the Grease” he said “What?” which I didn’t know back then was not him having missed what I said, but was more if him giving me a chance to change what I said. I said once more “Shoot the Grease.” He slowly turned red from the neck up, it was almost like you see in cartoons when the character eats something that is too spicy, but steam didn’t come shooting from his ears like in the cartoons. His Jaw locked like it does when he gets really angry. I have only seen him lock his jaw because of something I did 3 times in my life so this was a sure sign I had screwed up in a big way. He proceeded to explain to me and the neighbors, and their neighbors that in our house we do not say “Shoot the Grease”. We say “Pass the butter, please” and if any of those words were missing from the phrase then we would be going to our room without dinner, which was exactly my fate on that night. Lucky for me my mother has a soft heart and when my father dozed off she brought a sandwich into me.

                My cousin thought the story was funny, and she plans on going back to California for Christmas, and she said she is going to look at her father during Christmas supper and say “Shoot the Grease” That made me smile, because I can just picture his face when she hit’s him with that one. He will probably thing that it was a bad idea to have his daughter moved to the same city as me. He has since dropped his hippieness and traded that in for a good Christian life. He was in the meeting we had with the pastor perform our mother’s memorial service. I have to say if I am half the Christian man that he is then I know where I am going when I finally quit writing.