I believe in grease. I believe in its ability to unify, comfort, and save money. There are a few types of grease, and its powers can’t be underestimated. There is fatty grease from foods, there is elbow grease, and then there are a ton of lubricants with a grease base. Grease can bring happiness, it can bring people together, symbolize hard work, and, most importantly, it is delicious. It has become part of American society, and for better or worse, it is around.
Grease means food; more specifically, grease means meat. It also means that someone risked burns, fire, and annoying stings to put food on the table. A worthy risk and sacrifice I say. Greasy foods tend to make people happy. They actually release endorphins and make people feel good, though the endorphin release can become addictive, a partial cause of obesity sometimes. If you want a bunch of people to get together and get along, the best solution is a large fatty meal dripping with grease. Why do you think Thanksgiving works? Grease is in the turkey, the gravy, the butter; all of our family favorites. Suddenly, families that don’t get along or see each other very often are the best of friends.
I’ve seen this phenomenon before. It happened a few Thanksgivings ago. My brother and my maternal grandmother do not get along. For example, one year we got kicked out of my grandmother’s house the day before Thanksgiving due to one of his tantrums. Anyways, on this particular Thanksgiving, things were going as expected. Terribly. Then the food was put out. The tension that had been building was magically gone. The rest of the day went by relatively peacefully, and everyone was happy. Grease must be a divine blessing because I don’t think anything science-related could have defused a situation so successfully.
Grease is also prevalent in another part of popular culture. Fast food. When people need a quick, cheap meal and can’t cook for whatever reason, fast food is normally the answer. For people with a high metabolism, a little money, fast food restaurants are ideal for eating out. I can’t count the times that it was late at night and my friends and I got hungry and we decided just to go grab something from Wendy’s or McDonald’s. Each person will spend a couple bucks and won’t require food until breakfast.
There is also a completely different kind of grease. It’s called elbow grease. It shows that someone decided that there was a job that needed doing and wasn’t afraid to get dirty doing it. Maybe it was fixing the car, a lawn mower, or maybe it was one of a million manual labor jobs. I remember as a little kid, whenever my dad came in with oil on his elbows and a dirty t-shirt, I always respected him and looked up to him a little more. A sense of awe sort of came over me and I remember thinking, “I hope I’ll be able to do whatever he just did someday. I hope I’ll be willing to do that.” Elbow grease is almost a badge of honor. It says that a person is a hard worker and has a willingness to work. There are few more admirable and desirable traits in a person.
Grease. A godsend? A magical substance? Something that came about through biological evolution? The world may never know. It eases tension, it eases hunger, and it is easy on your finances. It brings happiness, admiration, and comfort. If there is some high ideal or great cause that grease can’t help with, I haven’t heard of it yet. The miracles that grease has brought to my life are innumerable, not to mention the miracles it has brought to the rest of the world. My hope is that everyone will experience grease in all its forms at some point. I hope the kids with vegetarian parents will be exposed to it. I hope boys will see the elbow grease on a guy, and think, “That’s part of what it means to be a man.” My final hope is that all the people in world will at some point be able to walk into a fast food restaurant and be able to enjoy a succulent burger that has soaked its wrapper with grease.