One Word I Did Not Invent

One Word I Did Not Invent

Both of my daughters, Amanda and Sarah, share several favorite comedians. One is Jim Gaffigan.

A while ago, I saw one of his recorded shows on the Comedy Central Channel on the cable. I really did not recall the event until my daughter reminded me about his bit involving 'Hot Pockets', the popular microwave food that, according to Jim, always seems either too cold or like molten lava - never anything between.

Jim was going to appear in concert in Tampa, not too far from where Amanda, my eldest daughter, was attending college. It seemed natural for her to decide to get everyone tickets for his show in the Performing Arts Center downtown. The only problem was that everyone else who wanted to go to the show lived on the east coast of Florida, in or around Melbourne, about a three-hour drive from the concert venue.

Regardless, my two daughters conspired to obligate me to drive them to the concert - oh, yes, and Sarah's two friends from school, Ember and Kaylan, needed rides, too. As much as I enjoy seeing a good comedian working his craft to perfection, I was not really into the whole idea of driving three teenagers across state to match up with another teenager who had all the tickets. Watching a show that would last a couple of hours, and then, after dropping off Amanda at her dorm, driving for three hours to get back home. I had work the next day. Despite how I behave at times, I am not a teenager. I can't go without sleep.

At the time, I drove a Chevy S10 pickup. Obviously, it did not have the room inside for four. Sarah arranged for me to borrow her mother's car, a 1990 Ford Crown Victoria. It was huge, had a known transmission problem and drove like a tuna boat on choppy seas. Before she agreed to the arrangement, Amanda and Sarah's mother mentioned her reservation that the car might not make it all the way to Tampa and back.

So that we could leave early enough to make it there in time, Sarah had to cut her last two classes of the day. I signed her out from the office. Ember and Kaylan were seniors and were apparently able to take the entire day off, as a college visit day. After all, the trip to Tampa involved seeing the campus of the University of South Florida, the part where Amanda lived, anyway. Because of the car's transmission problem, I didn't want to drive at Interstate Highway speeds. We followed a less traveled route, not the one that Map Quest would suggest.

We left at 12:30 PM and expected to arrive in Temple Terrace, the Tampa suburb where my oldest daughter was, at about 4:20 PM. That included stopping for sodas and tinkles on the way. I figured we would lose about an hour because of the 'convenience store' delays. It was not a big deal. The show started at 7PM, so there would be more than enough time for almost anything conceivable. Except... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves in the telling.

On the way, Ember and Kaylan told of a recent experience that involved magnetic letters on a refrigerator door and how, when something was spelled out and then inverted it could look like something entirely different. Such was the source of the word 'poog'.

If you take the word 'good' and inverted it, as would be possible with magnetic letters, it could look like like it spelled out 'poog', I guess. Yeah, you needed to bend the conventions of logic and the fact that a 'g' and 'd' were backwards as well as upside down, but that was the relevant origin of the term 'poog'. Apparently, both Ember and Kaylan walked past the refrigerator in question and saw the inverted 'word'. Simultaneously, they expressed the only possible rendering of it aloud.

As we drove on, we learned more about the proper usage of the word 'poog'. I found out that it was at least as versatile as some of the vulgarities that cannot be expressed on radio or TV. In fact, 'Poog' could be almost any part of speech.

Examples:

"He really pooged that."

"That is so very pooged-up of him."

"She's looks pooging awesome tonight."

"He doesn't realize how that makes him look like a total poog."

"What a dumb poog!"

"Why don't you just go poog yourself?"

And so on.

They even imagined tossing the word out to Jim Gaffigan at the meet and greet after the show.

The tuna boat I was driving arrived at Amanda's dormitory around 4:30 PM, dropped anchor temporarily in a parking lot as we went to fetch Amanda. She was waiting and just about ready to go. Of course, Amanda knew Sarah's friends from high school, so she had to show off her dorm room to Ember and Kaylan. I guess that was so the girls had something to claim in evidence should anyone at school ever question what they saw while visiting the campus.

Everyone decided they were hungry and, of course, there were a couple of great places at the shopping mall that Amanda wanted to show everyone. Being out with four teenage girls in a shopping mall was not a great idea. I had to keep an eye on the time, figuring in the cross-town traffic that would include a brief ride on I-275 around rush hour. If there was an accident of the Howard Franklin Bridge on the west end of town (a.k.a the car-strangled spanner) it could easily back up traffic to right about where we were going. Of course, that was exactly what happened. So, we took a less direct and far less scenic route through the back streets of Tampa, some of the neighborhoods where it is unwise to stop your car. Had I never lived around Tampa for many years, I'm not sure we would have made it to the show on time.

As much time as was spent in the telling of the 'poog' story on the way to Tampa, for whatever reason, at the meet and greet after the show, no one remembered to mention the word to Jim Gaffigan. I guess the girls were too busy laughing. They enjoyed the moment of personally meeting one of their favorite comedians.

Having met him, too, I have to tell you that he was a consummate professional in handling the crowd that had formed to get an autograph and a picture with him, including four teenage girls and me. When it was out turn in line, it was almost as if the girls took over everything.

First, Amanda, made him laugh before he signed the poster she bought. I don't know for sure, but I think if you can make a comedian laugh, that should be recorded for posterity. Consider it done. This is what happened.

Jim asked what my daughter wanted him to write on the poster.

"Make it out to Bob," Amanda said.

He looked up and started chuckling. "No, seriously," he prompted.

"Well, you could make it out to Amanda, which is my name, but there is a story about Bob."

"Okay," Jim said, seeming a bit confused.

Amanda went on to tell something completely off-the-wall that seemed to have nothing at all to do with 'Bob'. Then, toward the end of convoluted story, she mentioned that she borrowed some money from a friend to pay for the tickets until we could all reimburse her.

"Oh, so now I see. This was a means of reminding everyone you're with to pay you back," Jim said, and then laughed. "Okay, everyone's attention. Bob needs his money. I don't know who he is, how much interest he's charging, or if Amanda's life is in any danger, but please pay Bob. Thank you."

"So, without me...and Bob," Amanda explained. "I guess no one would have been here to see the show."

As a result of the story, Jim wrote something personal to her when he autographed her poster. It touched her. He said, 'Amanda, you are one my favorite people.' And then he hugged her for the picture that, Sarah took of them. Amanda took a picture of Sarah with Jim. And then a picture of Ember and Kaylan with Jim, then individual pictures. I took one of all the girls with Jim, and then Sarah took a picture of Jim and me.

"You know this is documentary evidence that I am paler than you are."

"There's no way, my friend," he said. One of his themes on that tour was how pale he looked.

"I'm so pale..." I began.

"Oh. here it comes," Jim interrupted.

"If I walk past a picture of the sunset, I get a sunburn."

He laughed, patting my back. "That's almost good enough to steal."

Then, Amanda asked him to autograph the shirt she was wearing, as it had a panda on it. It was in reference to one of his bits that involves pandas. He turned to me and said, "I'll sign it on the shoulder, just so that no one can accuse me of being a pedophile."

The tuna boat made it there and back, by the way. Of course, I had to fill the gas tank before returning the car to the girls' mother.

"Did you have fun?" she asked.

"Yeah, it was fun. It was different, but fun. And I learned a new word."

E