A long time ago, my dad and mom went to my grandparents for dinner, Gord and Isobel’s. My dad’s parents were the ideal Mad Men type couple (no cheating or abuse of course), but what I mean is, my Grandad worked full time while my Grandma stayed at home. Everyday he would come home for lunch, and she would have a nice hot meal waiting for him. She managed the finances and the social calendar, while he brought home the finances. They both loved being active. He was a member of the Kiwanis club, South Port Sailing club, the Windsor Club, the curling club, etc., while she was a member of some of the same clubs; curling and sailing, she also was in a bridge club, a May Court club and so many other clubs that I don’t even know the names of them.

At this particular dinner, my grandma was very excited because one of her ‘lady’ clubs created a recipe book and she was delighted to have picked a special casserole to make for the family.

There’s one important thing you should know before you read on: my grandad HATES casserols. Hates them. He also doesn’t like pasta, garlic, chicken and even turkey dinner. What’s that all about? Garlic is by far one of the greatest things known to mankind.

One other thing that’s important for you to take note of is my grandad is really funny. As a child I thought he was mean. However, it turned out that he’s not mean, not at all actually, he’s just plain old hilarious and I was just too daft to get his jokes. Still to this day at 94 years old, in all instances, if you give him a window of opportunity to say something funny and to make a wisecrack, he will barge right through it.

Anyway, my grandma placed her casserole proudly on the table and went in the kitchen to put the final touches on the other dishes. At first everyone at the table was quite. Not one word was said. They all just looked and stared at the dish that was put on the table.

My dad, being the smarty pants that he was/is whispered under his breath ‘what is it?’

Then grandad with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and a sly grin on his face muttered matter-of-fact-ly ‘I don’t know. Something the dog dragged in!’

Everyone at the table burst out with laughter. My grandma, knowing the audience all too well began getting upset and in her highest pitched voice kept saying ‘Gordy, what did you say? Gord? Gordy?’ Which made everything worse. Struggling to be quiet they all tried to stifle their laughter, but couldn’t. The more she wanted to know what they were laughing about, the harder they laughed. It was terrible and amazing all at once.

Needless to say that no one had the heart to tell her what actually went down at the table that day and since she didn’t know what was actually said she couldn’t stay mad for too long.