These Innocents Never Knew the Horror of the Early Morning Events
Today Pinky learned the manly task of greasing the wheel bearings on a car, but that is not the point of this story. What is to the point, is the story that came back to Pinky while he was elbow deep in sky blue bearing grease. Pinky's grandparents were an industrious duo. Between them they delivered ice, hoed cotton, sewed feedsack dresses, had a boarding house, owned a washateria, ran a bowling alley, sold real estate, did unlicensed dental cleaning, and even ran a gas station during the depression. It was at this gas station in desolate West Texas where this horrible story took place.
The pink grandfather (now greenish) had taken uncharacteristically ill and was bed-ridden--thus the gas station was closed for the day (as hard-working as the pink grandmother was, she didn't do unlady-like jobs of pumping gas, repairing cars or otherwise exposing herself to the rough and tumble of grease-monkey life). Early that morning as the big yellow sun was just rising over the plains, a big yellow school bus pulled up and honked its tinny horn. Eva Mae looked out the bedroom window from above the garage, and then told her husband who it was. Beryl pleaded for her to make an exception to her usual feminine propriety and step outside and tell the driver to help himself to the gas pump. (School children had to get their learning!) So, of course, she did.
Minutes later she ran sobbing into the apartment. She flung herself on the sofa in tears. Greenish Beryl was both feverish and confused. From his sickbed he asked her what happened. She could barely get out the words for the ocean of tears. "That horrible man......sob.....that school bus driver....." She had turned from pink to magenta and was now downright red!
Now, Beryl was worried. Should he get out of bed and call the sheriff? "Please tell me what he did to you, Eva Mae," he pleaded sickly.
"That man....asked me ....."
She blurted out, "That nasty man asked me for..... SOME REAR END GREASE!"
