GRAMPS AND THE MANGO TANGO

I know that few people have ever heard of the dance the Mango Tango because Gramps actually choreographed it. The actual setting for the first rendition of the dance took place at Wild Animal park in San Diego several years ago. Now, Gramps didn’t set out to invent a new dance, it was just one of those spur-of-the-moment things.
Let me give you a little background. I, known to all of you as MeMe, have a definite aversion to the four letter words starting with the letter “F“. I’m not a prude, I just don’t like the feeling of the hair standing up on the back of my neck and my face turning bright splotchy red from embarrassment. I guess it’s my age.
The number one F word causes me to chill and shudder. The number two F word is not quite so offensive to me, but it still causes some uncomfortable feelings in my body. When I was growing up we referred to that number two F word as breaking wind. Hearing that term was never a problem with me. When my children were growing up, the popular word for it was poot, which seemed like an acceptable word. At least it wasn’t the F word that it so popular now.
In an effort to be a loving grandmother, not wanting to correct my grandchildren or shame them for using the popular number two F word, I began to tell them about another word that is not at all offensive to me, the word “fert“. Just changing the second letter from “a” to “e” somehow does wonders in making it acceptable. Now, that idea was not original to me. I saw it in a cartoon strip in the newspaper. Being the loving, respectful grandchildren that they are, all of my five teenage grandchildren and my mid-twenty aged grandson quickly adopted that new word and have used it in substitution for the common word that is offensive to me.
Gramps and I even bought a children’s book in Branson one time about the physiology of that particular body function. It explained how all animals produce gas in their digestive systems that must escape from their bodies in various ways. It showed pictures of different sizes of animals and how their ferts sounded, from the varoom of the elephant to the psst of the mouse. It was very informative and became a favorite book of our grandchildren. All grandchildren should have the book. It takes the mystery out of a common body function.
Now back to the first time Gramps choreographed the Mango Tango.
Gramps had eaten some mango, lots of it because it was so sweet and tasty, about thirty minutes before we embarked for the Wild Animal Park. All four of our California grandsons plus one of our sons and our daughter-in-law were with us at the park
About thirty minutes into our tour of the Wild Animal Park Gramps suddenly said, “I have to find a rest room.”
Our son said, “There will be one somewhere down this road.”
Gramps said, very emphatically, “No, I mean I HAVE to find a rest room.”
Neil, our oldest grandson who was sixteen at the time, said, “Come on, Grandpa, I’ll show you one not too far from here.”
Neil and Gramps took off quite hurriedly down the road. That was the first time I ever saw the Mango Tango. Here is what had happened: the mango acted on Gramps in the same way that prunes act on the bowels of other senior citizens.
Gramps, with his eyes frantically searching for the distant rest room, was moving very quickly, rear end protruding, buttocks tightened, each leg crossing quite tightly in front of the other one in a staccato stride, his arms clutched to his body but swinging from the elbows down, his face contorted into a miserable grimace as he rushed toward the promised rest room which was quite a distance away. Hence, the body movements for the Mango Tango.
We observed Neil and Gramps disappear from sight with Gramps fully into his new dance. We’ve all done that dance at one time or another, we just didn’t know what to call it.
After a long, long time we saw Neil and Gramps coming toward us in the distance with Gramps walking normally, so we all knew that they had found a rest room. As they came into close view of us, Gramps had a look of complete relief on his face. Good, I thought, he made it.
Neil’s look was not so pleasant. The beautiful chestnut colored skin on his handsome face was beet red. He began to relate to us what had happened as he described the incident in detail. It seems that when Gramps went into the rest room there was no one occupying the rest room at the time. Thank God, Neil thought. Then all of a sudden there were sounds coming from the rest room that made people in the surrounding vicinity suspect that an elephant had gotten loose and set up residence in the rest room. Neil said there were several long varrrroooooom sounds from the rest room that sounded like an elephant erupting in huge gaseous emissions.
Neil, a typical teenager at the time, was tremendously embarrassed, and rightfully so. His description of the park patrons stopping and looking around for an elephant in close proximity to the rest room was hilarious. He reported that when Gramps casually strolled out of the rest room and walked over to Neil and greeted him with, “Wow, that was close,“ that’s when Neil could feel his face start changing colors from his embarrassment. After all, this was his Grandpa, not some gas producing elephant. Teenagers sometimes have an aversion to being in public with their grandparents, let alone being in the company of one who makes sound-barrier-breaking eruptions in the rest room at a popular theme park in the hearing vicinity of hundreds of people. Gramps is working hard to replace that particular memory in Neil’s mind with some more laughable memories, but I’m sure that story will be told in its entirety for many years to come. Right now, it continues to gives all of us laughs about the Mango Tango and Gramps being mistaken for an elephant while in the rest room.
No more mangos for you, Gramps, the rest of your life!
As for me, the four letter F words are still offensive to me, but the word fert is acceptable. I’m just funny that way.