It's A Double

     Years ago, or eons depending on one's age, when I was a teenager, I was always eager to use what ever new catch phrase, or word, was used as the newest adjective.  Words like cool, far out, wow man were rarely left out of a sentence.  Fortunately, I was born before the era of "like". 

     My father would always ask me questions such as, "How cool was it?", or "How far out did you go?", anything to irritate me.  I asked him once if he ever had a special word when he was young, millennia ago, and he said yes.  His word was "keen".  I think I told him that was about the most far out thing I had ever heard.

     Then a new word came into play.  Gross.  If it was nasty, ugly, or just down right yucky, it was gross.  Once again, my father would say it was a one forty four.  What?  Of course he then explained to me that a gross was actually a measure of something.  If you had 144 items, you had a gross.  I had obviously missed that lesson in school.  I was probably being really cool at the time.

     Dad and I enjoyed this particular catch phrase between ourselves and used the one forty four to describe anything we thought fit the category of gross.  If it was really bad, it became a two eighty eight, double gross.

     Gross seems to have stood the test of time because my four year old granddaughter uses it.  Its true meaning may have been lost to the new generations.

     I was standing in the kitchen, looking at the garbage disposal opening, knowing it needed a cleaning.  That made me think of some of the one forty fours I had encountered during my lifetime.  I've cleaned endless amount of fish.  Once I lined up the heads of several catfish and had them "talk" to my oldest grandson and his friend.  They were impressed.  I've dressed a couple of snapping turtles.  No easy task that one, and when I was done I came to the conclusion that whoever ate the first turtle must have been on the verge of starvation.  I wrestled that turtle all over the backyard.   I put fish eggs in a sauce pan, threw in some seasonings, heated them up and fed them to my friend's little brother......little brother's will eat almost anything.  I had to scrape a dead cat off the pavement before the kids saw their beloved pet squished by a set of tires.  Being a parent, I've seen numerous one forty fours in a diaper.

     But, I think the top of the list is the garbage disposal opening.  I never knew how much gunk gets stuck under the little black flap of plastic that lines the top of the drain hole.  I discovered this when I had to stick my hand into the disposal, yes, I turned the switch off, to get some foreign object out of the blades.  When I pulled my hand back up through the opening, this magically turned the black plastic flap wrong side out.  The stuff that coated my hand was assuredly the grossest thing I had ever encountered.  Really, I thought I was going to barf.  Oh yes, barf was a good word also.

     I have since discovered that an old toothbrush works wonders at cleaning the underside of the black flap and with the water running at the same time, the odor is diminished.  But one thing is certain, it's definitely a two eighty eight.