Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Things You Overhear


I'm lucky. I've got the best in-laws in the world. I would pit them against any in-laws you could find in a cage match of coolness and mine would win every time, hands down.

I won't go into details, but just as an example, there is a story my father in-law likes to tell about a couple they ran into on vacation.

They were vacationing down south. I don't know where, but as at least one quarter of the globe is south of here, your guess is as good as mine. They were traveling to or from their destination and stopped along the way to eat at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. After finishing their meal, Mom decides to visit the powder room before they get back on the road to cover many, many miles. Dad waits by the drinking fountain with another guy about his same age who is obviously waiting too. The man nods his hello and just kind of looks about with a bored look on his face and doesn't say a word. After a few minutes a women exits the ladies room and walks towards the guy and his face lights up, and in a loud voice that the whole establishment can hear he calls out to her, "Well, did you drop your mud?"

The whole place bursts out in a fit of laughter and the woman covers her face and doesn't even look up as she goes through the front door. The guy shrugs his shoulders and follows.

Dad likes to tell this story when they have polite company and Mom, to this day, still cringes at the woman's embarrassment. It has become a running joke in the family and is repeated at restaurants and parties whenever you have to wait for someone to come out of the bathroom.

In what way does this story prove their coolness? It doesn't. I just like to tell it, and they give damn good hugs. I hope you are as lucky, and be sure to wash your hands.

Doc

7 comments:

  1. I can just picture Flann-Dad telling this story, his soft voice suddenly rising at the DIDJA' DROP YER MUDD? line and Flann-Mom putting her hand over her eyes and bowing her head (while simultaneously smiling at the whole thing).

    There's a wonderful book of palindromes (words spelled backwards and forwards, like "racecar" and "massive Levis, Sam!") where one of the phrases is "DUMP MUD."

    I shall never be able to read that book again without thinking of this story.

    (and as tempted as I might be to ask this question of Spooky, I know better-- she'd bash my Tommy helmet with her Pin of Righteousness so very flat that you couldn't use it for a piepan. No doubt I'll THINK it, though)

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  2. This is the first I have ever heard of that expression.

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  3. Classy!

    Like Skylersdad, that's the first time I've heard that expression. For some reason I'm more familiar with "blow ballast", "drop a deuce" or "burn a mule".

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  4. Serves her right. What did she expect at a Cracker Barrel restaurant?

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  5. I think I'd get along with your father-in-law just fine. I, too, am going to start using that expression. Hard to believe I'd never heard it before.

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  6. My brother in law once at a schmancy restaurant saw my brother picking at something in his teeth. He loudly called out 'Good idea! Waiter!! Toothpicks for everyone!!!'. Maybe we're all related?

    For the tally - I've never heard the expression either.

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