Don't Breathe Too Deeply

Do you remember in My Big Fat Greek Wedding how her father thinks everything can be cured with Windex? Well, my family has something similar, but we prefer a highly flammable substance. Starter fluid. Those cans of starting ether that you get at Pep Boys. Well, Grandfather uses it for just about everything.

It can get ink out of the inside of the dryer. It can get Sharpie off of a gift bag. It can get Silly Putty out of cloth. It can get the goo from a price tag off of anything. And it can get tar off my ass. These are the exotic uses of starter fluid, but what we usually used it for was cleaning generators. It cuts through grease like nothing you’ve ever seen. Back to the tar-on-my-ass story, though…

Grandfather had an old building in Ogden that we always called “The Plant.” Come to think of it, I have no idea why. Maybe I’ll ask him. We were working there one day, tarring the roof. Roll out the tar paper, tar the seams, squish the fiber tape into the tar, and put a final coat of tar on top of the tape. I was working away, counting the hours until lunchtime, trying to keep the sweat from running into my eyes, and I hear, “Kate?”

I stood up and peaked over at GF. He was up to his armpits in the roof. There were some weak spots and he had fallen through one. There was a shelf of lawn mowers in the room below that had, thankfully, kept him from going all the way.

Not sure of what the hell to do, and wondering how I’d tell Grandmother if something horrendous happened, I said, “Yeah?”

He held out one hand to stop me and said, “Don’t come any closer. Just stand there until I get out.”

Not seeing how this was useful at all, I did as he bid. There were some anxious moments as he hauled himself out of the hole, but he made it. We both examined the gap when he was on solid ground again and marveled that he was in one piece.

While that’s an amusing anecdote, it has nothing to do with starter fluid, you say. True. But I’m getting there. While I had been tarring said roof, I had accidentally sat in some tar. I was wearing a really crappy pair of jeans, so I couldn’t have cared less. Grandfather only cared because of what my mom might say and the fact that I had to ride home in his Lincoln Continental. (That car was insane. It was HUGE and cantaloupe colored. We called it the Pimpmobile.) So, I wouldn’t get tar on his precious seats, he had me sit on a plastic grocery bag. Being that it was tar on my pants, the bag stuck to it. Sexy.

Back at the house, he stuck a rag down my pants, sprayed my ass with starter fluid, and started scrubbing away. There was a dark spot there, ever after, but most of it came out. It’s become a long-standing joke now. My roommate makes starter fluid jokes. I should ask Rebecca to post her story about using starter fluid to get the BO out of a stinky costume she had.

Beware the fumes.