My Trip to Grease

 

The town of Brooksville is not at all how I pictured it.  I thought it was going to be full of little, mysterious shops, with owners dressed in flowing scarves, cheap jewelry and selling odd trinkets usually relegated to backroom shelves.

Always there is a whiff of incense filling their shops, suggesting things are almost legal, but somehow questionable.  A hint of mandolin music helps shoppers to feel less conspicuous about lingering perhaps a bit too long.  

But like I said, none of Brooksville was anything like that.  We ended up in one of those big box stores.  Everything was large quantities with almost good, but not quite good, prices.  Once our shopping cart was filled, we headed out to the parking lot to transfer all the cold items into the large cooler we had in the trunk.

The cooler had eight frozen icepacks in it, so the cold stuff would stay cold for the ride home.  Here’s where Murphy’s Law enters our adventure.  Our trunk would not open.  Nothing we tried would get it unlatched.  Everything in our shopping cart would have to go to the back seat, and because of the cold items, our shopping day would now have to be cut short.

On a last-ditch effort, I drove to a car dealership, thinking they might have some magic car Voodoo and be able to open our trunk.  There was nobody in the service line, so I pulled in and walked into the building to find a mechanic and while I was there, use the bathroom.

So far, there was no one around, but I did see a restroom sign.  I went in and saw what I assumed had been a white porcelain sink.  This one, however, was so covered in black grime and grease that it gave me the creeps just being in there with it. I left.  Just before driving away from the dealership I tried the trunk one more time.  It opened. (Don't know why)

The more I thought about how those mechanics are up to their elbows all day long in dirty car parts, messy fittings and filthy tools, I bet that restroom looks normal to them.  They see it every day and so expect nothing else.   Of course, those thoughts got me to thinking about the various restaurants we frequent around town, and how the cooks and kitchen helpers must be surrounded by similar circumstances.  Seeing the same things every day, the burnt pans, sticky handles and whatever gross and disgusting things there are, just look normal to them.  It’s all just grease.

We decided to just head home and have lunch there.