Cheerio!

It must have been a summer day sometime in the early 1960’s.  My father, a boy, was out in a pasture with a couple of neighbor kids, including a boy named Matt Banks.  Matt Banks had a thing for speaking with phony accents.  He was always repeating the word “blackberries” over and over in his fake French, pronouncing it like “vlack-veyees.”   In his British accent he often said the word, “Cheerio,” in a way that sounded like, “Chiddio.”

The boys didn’t have much to do in the pasture that day.  Inspired by their boredom  they decided they would try to lasso the big Holstein cow grazing there.  They had never really lassoed anything, but they had seen it done and it seemed interesting.   They tied the rope, tossed it and were surprised when it landed fairly easily around the cow’s heavy neck.  The hard part turned out to be getting the rope back off again.  They tried and tried, but every time they got close enough to put some slack in the rope, the cow took a couple steps forward and tightened the loop.  

After a while they started to get nervous.  If their dads saw the Holstein wandering around with the lasso around its neck the boys were sure to be in trouble.   They decided to get serious.  They all held onto the rope and pulled as hard as they could.  They wanted the cow to stand still and eventually move back.  Even as the kids used all their strength, pulling until their faces went red, the cow would take a few effortless steps forward to reach a new patch of grass, and topple the boys like dominoes.  One of the boys was dragged through a cow pie.

Matt Banks thought this was hilarious, and said to the cow-pied kid in a jaunty sort of way, “chiddio mate!”  The other kid said, “Don’t you mean shittio?  I’ve got your shittio right here!”  Then he picked up a cow pie and hurled it at the others.  This spontaneous move led, in just moments, to a full, passionate poop fight.  No one was even concerned about the filth, they just kept on scooping and throwing.  Some of the cow pies were as hard as Frisbees.  Others smooshed and splatted. 

They carried on slinging poop and shouting “shittio!” and other bad words at each other, crazy with kid-madness, when  all of a sudden my dad’s father, Ancel, was just standing there.  He had seen everything.  Heard everything.   They had been so absorbed in the poop fight they hadn’t even noticed his approach.  The bad words still hung in the air near their lips, they were all covered with poop and the Holstein was still securely lassoed.  The boys froze, terrified, and silently waited for the punishment to begin.

Ancel walked in silence over to the cow and slipped the rope from around its neck.  He then rolled up the rope, hopped over the fence and walked away.  Somehow—no one could believe it—they had escaped with their lives.  Shittio!

How To Stick a Dorito to Your Shirt

For Halloween this past fall, my brother Chris decided he would disguise himself as a man with a chip on his shoulder.  After considering many types of chips he might use, he felt a Nacho Cheese Dorito would be his best option. 

During my dad’s Thanksgiving visit we discussed the unexpected hardship Chris encountered in trying to assemble the costume.  He couldn’t glue the chip to his shirt because no glue would adhere adequately to the oily chip coating.  After a couple of failed attempts with glue he decided he would have to sew the Dorito in place.  He bored two tiny holes in a chip (smashing a dozen before he succeeded) and fastened it to the shoulder of his shirt with needle and thread.  Shortly after he finished this painstaking project, a co-worker came in the door of the Portland restaurant where they both work and said, “Oh, man, you’ve got something on your…” and, trying to brush the embarrassing junk off Chris’s sleeve, he smashed the sewn Dorito to bits.  Chris had to start over.

Dad listened with interest, and offered these ideas for how Chris could have had better luck:

1.       He could have fashioned a fake chip out of falafel, like a vegan chip sculpture.  This would have been more pliable and easier to sew.

2.       He could have used a dessicant to suck the oil and moisture out of the chip before trying to glue it on to the fabric.

3.       Did he try hot glue?

4.       He could have applied a lacquer coating to the chip before gluing.

5.       He could have dipped the chip in hot paraffin wax, then melted it to the shirt sleeve.

6.       What about quick-dry cement?  You dunk the chip, then squish it onto the shirt sleeve before it dries.

7.       A silicone sealant? 

8.       What about magnets?

My brother-in-law, Dan, intervened.  “I think you’re over thinking this.  Had he built a frame for the chip…a simple wooden structure…”

Then I related the story that Chris told me about the guy with the ironic beard who works at the Whole Foods in Portland: any time Chris goes through his check-out line the guy is cold and unfriendly.  It’s the ironic beard, Chris says, that causes him to behave this way.  (What is an ironic beard, I asked.  Oh, it’s a beard that’s intentionally ugly, grown for the purpose of seeming ironic and artsy and mysterious.)  At first Chris tried to be friendly, and claims to have been repeatedly snubbed by Whole Foods Beard Man.  Except for this—on Halloween, while leaving Whole Foods dressed in his “costume,” Beard Man looked at him, then looked again, and for the first time he brightened.  His face lit up and he smiled and he said, “Oh, I get it.  You have a chip on your shoulder!”

So what did Chris do?  He snubbed Beard Man.  He gave a small grunt, ignored the friendly gesture, and left with his Dorito intact, but one small chip carved out of his everlasting soul.

Dad said, “Man, the guy stuck the olive branch out, and Chris broke it off and built a fire with it.”

Revenge is bittersweet.