My dad worked at GM in their tool crib - a pretty cushy job in which he was paid real money to sit at a little window and fill parts and tool orders. The most important part of his job, however, was to play practical jokes. The guys in the tool crib were a raucous bunch, often playing jokes on one another. They also were serious about their food. They had an entire kitchen set up in the tool crib and every day the west end of the plant smelled like the finest French restaurant. However - and this was a BIG however - one thing the tool crib guys never joked around with was food. Cover a black toilet seat with permanent indigo ink right before the boss goes in for his daily constitutional? Sure!
Steal the foreman's coveted tool box, paint it yellow and cover it with a series of intricately painted cartoon characters? Right on, brother!
Discover that one frequent visitor to the tool crib was deathly afraid of snakes and rig a realistic looking snake to drop onto the poor guy's head? Groovy!
Mess with a man's food? Never! Sacrilege!
Unfortunately, one of his coworkers decided to break the tool crib's "Never Kid Around About Food" rule. Apparently, this weasel of a man was known to steal lunches and then openly brag about it. One of my dad's signature dishes was a gourmet hamburger. Guys came from all over the plant to enjoy his home cooked burgers - that is if he invited you to partake in their beefy goodness. Only a select few garnered invitations.
The aforementioned sticky-fingered coworker, however, was never invited, yet many a burger ended up on a milk carton when this man was around. He bragged far and wide how stealing my dad's delicious hamburgers was his coup de grace. Chef de Cuisine Kughen, however, was not amused. So, he and the other tool crib heroes plotted and conspired. They schemed and they colluded. I hear tale that they might have even artificed, but that might just be conjecture. It's hard to tell as the story might've grown taller in the re-telling.
But, I digress.
Back to nefarious plotting of our tool crib heroes. After discussing a variety of machinations, they settled on hitting this thief where he lived - right on the dinner plate. So, they went to Hank's - that was the local grocery store in Marion, IN at the time - and purchased a goodly portion of Gaines Burgers. Any self-respecting dog owner in the 1970s and 1980s remembers Gaines Burgers - small, hamburger-shaped patties of horse meat goodness wrapped in fancy cellophane packets and designed to fool dogs into believing they were eating a Big Mac right along side you, while you scarfed down a real Big Mac. Of course, they weren't fooled - and they exacted revenge later when they took a dump in your shoe.
But, I digress yet again.
So, the Tool Crib Gang mixed several boxes of Gaines Burgers patties with some other mystery meat that I hear might or might not have also included some of the substance Fido left for you in your shoe. They formed lovely patties and grilled them on their little charcoal grill - yes, they had a CHARCOAL GRILL inside the plant. No, this wasn't considered GM-approved equipment. They grilled up these delectable bites of brown goodness and left them right were Mr. Five-Finger Discount (and soon to be Mr. Very Sick and Have No Idea Why) would find them. And find them he did.
Apparently, if you get the mix of Gaines Burgers, mystery meat and fecal matter just right, burgers made from this concoction are purely sublime. The man ate several of these gut bombs before his stomach caught up to his taste buds and hit the eject levers - going in both directions. Word is that he made it to a waste basket for the upward ejection and was forced to scamper toward the crib bathroom for the, uh, downward ejection.
Did I mention that they liked to cover the black toilet seats with permanent indigo ink? Yeah, I think I did.
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