Holy Barbecue

I’m in a barbecue joint. The kind of place my father would have loved. He appreciated barbecue the same way Presbyterians appreciate “The Doxology.” He was a connoisseur of saturated fat. The man could eat a pound of pork before you finished saying grace.

It was inside a joint like this that I first graduated from a spitting, squirting baby into a man. It happened when I was a kid. There was a barbecue joint on the outskirts of town. There was nothing around for miles except cattle fields and an old filling station.

The joint was the kind of place with pinewood walls and greasy floors. It smelled like a fine blend of pecan smoke and stale beer. You ordered at the counter. Your meal came with a complimentary salad bar.

Salad bars were a new thing back then. My father didn’t care for them. He thought the idea of eating salad with barbecue made about as much sense as drinking 7UP during the World Series. But he soon discovered that he was mistaken. Because included on the salad bar was cheese soup. He loved cheese soup.

So while my mother would be fixing her salad—which was a single sprig of lettuce topped with eight cups of ranch dressing and four pounds of crushed bacon—my father would eat himself sick on soup.

He fell in love with the concept of salad bars, namely, because they were all-you-can-eat. My father was a notorious tightwad. He was so cheap that the guest room in our house had a pay smoke alarm.

Anyway, it was on the drive to this barbecue joint that my family was making happy conversation in the car. There was always an air of giddiness surrounding barbecue. My father was driving along when:

SMACK!

We hit something with the front tires. My mother screamed. My father swerved.

“You hit a possum!” my mother shouted.

Everyone was stunned. My father let out a yelp, so did my mother. Everyone was shaken by this minor vehicular homicide and tensions were running high. I will never forget what happened next.

It just fell out of my mouth. In all the excitement I hollered, “Holy shrimp!”

Only I didn’t say shrimp.

To this day, I don’t know how it happened. It just slipped. I don’t recall using this particular word at that young age. Then again, if you’d gone to fourth grade with Ryan McGee like so many of us did, you’d know that he used this word at least 4,294 times every day on the playground.

The atmosphere in the car became quiet. It was like a nuclear winter in our station wagon.

My father locked eyes with me. “What did you say?”

My mother had to be revived with cold water.

We wheeled into the filling station. The young gas-pump attendant peered into our car and I think he could sense that the Angel of Death was about to visit our family.

My father told the kid to “Fill’er up.”

My mother was deep in prayer, pleading for the Lord not to strike me dead so that she could have the pleasure of doing it herself.

When we got into the restaurant my mother decided what my sentence would be. She was going to wash my mouth with soap. This is what parents did back then. My parents nailed down the final details.

“Do you wanna do it?” my mother asked my father.

“Me? Don’t make ME do it.”

“Well, I can’t take him into the women’s room.”

“Why not?”

They were talking about me like I was already dead.

My father reluctantly agreed to exact the punishment. He escorted me into the men’s room. He explained my crime to me. And even though he admitted that he, too, occasionally used this word, he stressed that it was only during moments of agony, life-threatening pain, or important national championships.

Otherwise, this word was a big-time sin. It wasn’t a small sin like siphoning gas or hotwiring cars. This was the major leagues.

So he looked around the bathroom for a bar of soap. But the only soap available was the pink liquid kind from a hand pump. He pumped a few squirts into his hand and sniffed it. I could almost see what he was thinking.

A bar of soap was one thing. But this stuff was chemical strychnine. If I ate this sludge I would never see another birthday.

By now I was crying, perhaps even sucking my thumb.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll never use that word again, and we’ll PRETEND I washed your mouth out.”

I sniffed. “But wouldn’t that be a lie?”

Now we had a moral dilemma. Not only would I be getting away with murder, but now I was flaunting the Ninth Commandment, too.

Thus, in a moment that can only be called divinely inspired my father said, “Yes, it is a lie. That’s why you have to promise, like a real man, that this’ll be the LAST lie you ever tell in your whole life.”

When we walked out of the bathroom, I reentered society as a grown man. No longer a child, but four foot taller. We ordered barbecue, my father ate cheese soup. And after all these years I never lied or cussed again.

Yes. My father would have loved this barbecue joint. Especially the barbecued shrimp.

15 comments

  1. Elizabeth - January 22, 2020 11:28 am

    Omg, that’s a good one! But now, your Mom will know the truth!

    Reply
  2. Harriet White - Atlanta - January 22, 2020 12:07 pm

    That was excellent Sean. I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you.

    Reply
  3. Sharon Brock - January 22, 2020 2:08 pm

    Holy non-Shrimp is my favorite cuss-word-combination. Da*n it to hel* ranks right up there and is usually reserved for blind refs who cost my beloved Kentucky Wildcats a three point shot at the buzzer. P.S. My mother kept a bar of Zest in the glove compartment. She had 6 children and was always prepared.

    Reply
  4. Shelton A. - January 22, 2020 2:59 pm

    Holy shrimp, indeed. You made a promise to your dad and you kept it. Good column because I think most of us can relate to similar moments in our own childhood. I learned, but did not use, the basic cuss word dictionary from my dad. He would say it, look at me, and make me promise not to use it in front of my mother.

    Reply
  5. Dawn Bratcher - January 22, 2020 3:10 pm

    I am looking forward to meeting your dad in heaven, Sean. I feel like I am getting to know him through your marvelous memories. 💟

    Reply
  6. aleathia nicholson - January 22, 2020 4:34 pm

    You know I do not believe one word of this but I enjoyed reading it anyway.

    Reply
  7. Mary T - January 22, 2020 6:35 pm

    My dad’s favorite was “gosh dang it,” which we were not allowed to repeat. If he ever said, “hells bells” you needed to find a place away from him. With today’s language it certainly seems rather tame, doesn’t it?

    Reply
  8. Janice Takashima - January 22, 2020 6:36 pm

    I don’t know why I was the particular beneficiary of that soaping punishment, but I remember my offense was for saying “No” when told by my mother to go home from a neighbor’s birthday party. I suspect my mother’s pride was offended. Talking back was a major crime in my family. I learned to keep my opinions and likes to myself.

    Reply
  9. that is jack - January 22, 2020 6:38 pm

    You should never have preceded the S word with Holy. That was the GIG ONE! Just sayin’.
    Stay warm, we are up to 51 degrees in central FL.
    Sherry & ajck

    Reply
  10. Ginger Smith - January 23, 2020 12:02 am

    Makes me hungry to read this! Every neighborhood in my hometown had its own BBQ joint. All good, even had local sauce that is based on Carolina mustard sauce. End pieces, black oak smoked. Yum!

    Reply
  11. Ann - January 23, 2020 8:30 pm

    Great… visual as always and heartwarming ❤️

    Reply
  12. Linda Moon - January 23, 2020 10:02 pm

    Here’s my late comment because of a “SHRIMPPY” internet problem: I once had a friend long before we got older who said when she had grandchildren, she would teach them to CUSS, SPIT and TELL LIES. You ended up with two of those in your moral dilemma, Sean. I’ve lost touch with my old friend. I wonder if she ever had grandchildren and taught them those three moral dilemmas!!

    Reply
  13. Pecos Kate - January 26, 2020 4:25 am

    What a great demonstration of fatherly love and problem solving. Your dad was quick on his feet.

    I love it!!

    Reply
  14. Martha Black - February 28, 2020 1:33 am

    Yes, but now she’d probably just laugh about it.

    Reply
  15. Gale Smith - February 28, 2020 2:19 am

    Heck is where you go when you die if you do not believe in Gosh Almighty. I once took a bunch of cousins and neighbor kids to the city pool. They were so loud going home that I threatened to wash out the mouth of the next one to scream on our way home. I still remember the taste of that soap….I counted heads when we got back and had 11 instead of 10. That was way better than 9.
    I had a wonderful childhood. You help me recall it very often.

    Reply

Leave a Comment