It's my job because it makes Y gag.
How is it, I wondered, that Y can perform rectal exams and dig around inside of long-dead human beings without blinking, but he can't scoop up some wet bread and a few smushed cherries with his bare hands?
And then I figured it out.
A long long time ago (circa the 1960s) "Officer" Don Kennedy, an Atlanta TV personality, invented a game to play with the studio audience at his children's show "The Popeye Club". He placed several paper bags on a turntable and stuck prizes in a few of them. In the rest, he dumped raw eggs, flour, mayonnaise, ketchup -- anything that would make a kid squeal if he or she stuck a hand in it.
One of the children from the studio audience was selected and blindfolded. As the turntable went round and round, the child stuck their hand in a bag, hoping it was the one with the prize. If not, everyone yelled Ooey gooey!
At this time, my dad was a teenager growing up in Atlanta and apparently bored enough to watch children's variety shows.
I'm imagining he came home from a round of golf with his dad, flopped down in front of the TV and realized "The Popeye Club" was the only thing on. Reluctantly, he watched the Ooey Gooey segment and filed it away under Games to Play at My Future Little Girl's Birthday Parties Twenty Years From Now.
(Kind of like how I'll occasionally watch "16 and Pregnant" and file it under My Future Little Girl Is Never Allowed to Date, Ever.)
And sure enough, twenty or so years later Ooey Gooey was a staple at my birthday parties. I was positive that my dad, the smartest man in the world, had come up with it all by himself. It wasn't until the other day, when I made the connection between the game and my sink and asked him to explain how he invented Ooey Gooey, that he crushed my dreams and told me about Officer Don.
Regardless of where the idea came from, I'm thankful I was made to stick my hand in raw eggs and ketchup as a child. It was useful in teaching me a very important adult skill, right up there with financial planning and laundry.
Here's to my next house having a garbage disposal, so I won't have to put that skill to use anymore.
That's basically my job, too, except we have a garbage disposal so the kitchen sink is fine. My job is to pull up the slippery wad of hair, lint and soap that has collected in the shower drain.
ReplyDeleteewwww! do you have a sink trap!? we have an old nasty one that is basically only emptied by myself and b even though two other people live in this house. i hope you get that disposal!!
ReplyDeletehaha :) your dad is clever!
oh goodness. We have a disposal, but if a spoon or something goes down the drain it's Russ who has to retrieve it. I'm like Y - gagging the entire time.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh...what cute pictures of you!! For some reason this doesn't surprise me about your dad. No wonder why mom worried so much that your party favor bags wouldn't be good enough.
ReplyDeleteWell, we don't have a disposal installed... but there is a new disposal under our sink (since Christmas!) I LOVE having so much trash. I'm going to learn how to hard wire something so we can get a disposal already. (and PS - I had those little skates. Such fun memories!)
ReplyDeleteC - if there was hair involved in any of this, we would not be having this conversation. I HATE hair. I guess it must know that, hence it leaving my head at any opportunity and lodging itself in our drain. VOM.
ReplyDelete