Old Yarn - The Police Raid

Vlog

I gather people prefer videos and podcasts to reading these days, and several readers (or would-be readers) have suggested a vlog format. They usually say it should be massively abridged, maybe even refashioned as a TikTok dance video featuring somebody far more attractive than I. As compelling as that idea may be, honestly I prefer to stay as far from TikTok as possible. In terms of a more straightforward vlog version, in the past I’ve recorded myself reading a blog post, but I’m not sure how entertaining that really is. And so, as an experiment, today I used AI to create a voiceover version of this story, with some pictures, kind of like a slide show. This video runs about 11 minutes. Give it a try if you like, and let me know what you think. (And if you’re an old-school reader, scroll down as the text version awaits.)

Introduction

This is the eighth “old yarn” on albertnet (following in the footsteps of “The Cinelli Jumpsuit,” “Bike Crash on Golden Gate Bridge,” “The Enemy Coach,” “The Brash Newb,” “The Day I Learned Bicycle Gear Shifting,”, “The In-Flight Voyeur,” and most recently “The Dark Alley Incident”). This is the kind of true story that would normally be a “From the Archives” item, except I’ve never before written it down.

The Drug Bust – early 1994

I was living in an apartment on Webster Street in San Francisco’s Western Addition, aka Lower Haight. At the time I felt like it was a fairly safe neighborhood, but (as detailed here) I’ve discovered more recently that, at that time, it was actually pretty rough. I’d found the place through A—, a buddy at the Berkeley bike shop where I’d worked until I graduated from college. Our other roommate, R—, was the one who had the lease, and I didn’t know much about him except that he was about ten years older than us, and made his living buying broken down cars from the police auction and then fixing and selling them. He had a lot of spare time, which he spent entertaining friends, cooking, watching TV, and smoking weed.

I wasn’t too wild about R—’s lifestyle, especially the weed part, but he was a nice guy. Noting my predilection for making burritos, he’d buy chips and really good salsa from some local taqueria or Mexican grocery and exhort me to help myself to them. He was generally in pretty good spirits, laughing at all kinds of stuff. He had a great tabby cat whose official name was Pogo but whom A— and I called Toonces. Toonces took a shine to me and would sleep in my bed, a queen-size futon that took up almost my entire bedroom. My racing bike hung right above the futon, and I hung my dress shirts and neckties from its front wheel.

R—’s main visitors, for most of the time I lived there, were his girlfriend, his mistress, and another female friend who was a stripper. I don’t even remember his girlfriend’s name and other than her looks, I don’t know what R— saw in her. She had this dog named Dakota she’d always bring with her and about 90% of her verbal output was bawling out the dog—“Dakota, no!” 

The mistress, M—, wasn’t nearly as pretty but was a totally cool chick, we all liked her a lot. I don’t remember the stripper’s name either. She was nice, but pretty quiet and mostly just watched TV. I think R— only had her over to give her a place to relax and recharge; I gather she had a hard life.

Over time things started to go downhill. A— moved out, and R— rented the room out to some random guy who was stressed out all the time because he managed a restaurant. This guy had a female cat, Chloe, who was in heat and always coming on to Toonces, apparently unaware that she was also female.  Chloe would always stick her hind end in Toonces’ face and Toonces would stalk away, disgusted. Eventually Chloe got herself knocked up from some offscreen neighborhood tomcat, and had a litter of kittens that our roommate couldn’t manage to unload on anyone so they just pissed everywhere until it became untenable and R— kicked the guy out, kittens and all. Then we got some freshly minted journalism grad from Oklahoma who didn’t seem to have a job and just hung around, mainly watching R—’s giant TV, always with this kind of awkward trying-to-be-friendly smile plastered to his face. Meanwhile, R—’s weed use appeared to go from a special treat to a routine indulgence to a lifestyle. M— started to get a bit grumpy, chafing at her ongoing role of mistress vs. her hope of pushing out the girlfriend. Worst of all, R— got in the habit of having friends over and smoking them out, and this collection of friends seemed to grow over time to where there always seemed to be some stranger in my living room. It became kind of a menagerie of dirtbags.

I tolerated all of this because the rent was dirt cheap and I was saving up as much money as possible for a 9-month bicycle tour I was planning with my then-girlfriend, E—. I was spending a lot of my time at E—’s place anyway, and as our story begins I was in my last week living at the Webster place and had already started moving my stuff into storage.

On the night in question my dad was in town with his then-wife, and had offered to take E— and me out to dinner. I got home a bit early from work, just after sunset, so I’d have time to change out of my suit and tie and shake off the workday before my dad picked me up. The apartment was an upstairs unit, so just past the front door was a steep flight of stairs. As I came through the door, R— stuck his head out over the stairwell and yelled, “Don’t come in!”

I was gobsmacked. On what grounds could or would my roommate say this? I mean, I live here! I pay rent! As I stood there paralyzed with confusion, another head popped out, that of a complete stranger, who yelled, “Freeze! Police! Are you armed?!”

I guess you could say I’d lived a charmed life up to that moment, because it didn’t occur to me that this could actually be a cop. I mean, it didn’t even cross my mind. It felt like these two must have been having me on. So I replied, “Are you kidding?!” At this the cop—for it was in fact a plainclothes cop—came running down the stairs toward me. And yes, he was packing heat—but at least it was holstered. I put my hands up and said something like, “I’m really sorry, officer—but can you tell me what’s going on?” He didn’t answer but gestured up the steps. “Get up there,” he commanded.

I was marched up to the living room. R— was sitting on one end of the sofa, looking really pissed off and a bit freaked out. Our Okie roommate was seated at the other end of the sofa looking absolutely petrified. There were five plainclothes cops tearing the place apart. I gathered this was a drug bust—I mean, what else could it be? Dumb luck that I happened to come home that evening. The energy off these cops was intense and kind of terrifying. They were dressed to blend in with the urban environment—jeans and dark windbreakers—and they were moving at a speed that didn’t seem necessary, shoving things off bookcases, turning things over, yanking open drawers. They seemed pissed, like whatever they were looking for they weren’t coming up with. The first cop demanded some ID. I very slowly drew my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it over. He gave it to someone to run it.

“What room is yours?” another cop asked. I pointed down the hall. He said, “Show me.” I led him down there. When carrying my futon frame out a few days before, I’d lost my grip and it busted the light switch so I couldn’t turn on the light. For that reason, I still had my big Maglite in there. It was the big 4-D-cell version I’d bought for the upcoming bike tour and I suddenly realized it wasn’t where I’d left it. In fact, the cop at my shoulder was wielding a Maglite and I reckoned it was probably mine, like in all the excitement he didn’t realize this wasn’t his cop-issued one. I decided not to bring it up. “Where’s all your stuff?!” the guy demanded. I told him, “I’m moving out.” He asked, “Why?!”

This was a bit of a tough one to answer. I’m sure he didn’t want to hear a Doogie Howser response like, “I’m putting all my things in storage because I’m going to do a cross-country bike tour! It’s going to be so much fun!” But I also didn’t want to sound like a smartass. I decided to take the risk and said, with a head-nod toward my roommate in the living room, “Why do you think?” He asked why the light switch was broken. I explained. He marched me back into the living room.

Just as I got there, the phone in the kitchen rang. I was like, oh crap, that’s probably my dad. I turned to the guy who’d come down the stairs for me, whom I took to be the head cop, and said, “Hey, that’s probably my dad calling. He’s supposed to come over. Can I please answer, just to tell him not to come?” The cop stared at me for a couple seconds, as the phone continued to ring, and finally said, “Okay … but no funny stuff.”

I almost burst out laughing. Where did this guy get his script? From watching cop shows on TV? “No funny stuff,” seriously? What was I gonna say … “The bird has flown – execute Plan Bravo”? But I kept a straight face and picked up the phone. It was E— asking, “Hey, are we still on for tonight?” I paused. What counted as funny stuff? Does mentioning the police raid violate some law enforcement taboo? I decided to be as vague as possible. “I’m not sure,” I said carefully. “Things have gotten a bit complicated. Just stay put and … I’ll be in touch.” I rang off and the cop seemed okay with what I’d said. Handing me back my driver’s license, he sent me back into the living room where a cop had finally found something at the back of a bookcase: a little baggie of mushrooms. R— said, “Oh my god, there those are, I wondered where I’d stashed them!” The head cop wheeled around to face him and yelled, “Oh, you think this is funny?!” Now R— looked properly terrified. I guess he’d been shooting for levity but obviously that didn’t work out.

All this time, Toonces was sitting up on top of the giant TV, looking down across the scene. This was her favorite perch, since TVs still had tubes back then so it was always nice and warm. One of the cops must have followed my gaze because he yelled at me, “What’s the cat doing up there?!” I couldn’t believe he’d actually asked that. I mean, what a pointless question, right? I guess he was so hopped up on adrenaline he just needed to yell something. I meekly replied, “Um … she likes it up there.” He fired back, “ Does she always sit up there?!” The very first thing that popped into my head as a response was, “No, only when she’s stoned!” But obviously after R—’s experiment I didn’t even consider it. I just said, “Uh, yeah … most of the time.”

The doorbell rang. Oh crap … my dad. Before I could do anything the head cop ran down the stairs and threw open the door: “Freeze, police! Are you armed?!”

I peered down the stairs to see my dad standing in the doorway, looking dumbfounded. At least he didn’t look threatening, with his tidy grey beard, ‘90s-era Bill Gates eyeglasses, and tweed blazer. But he also didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, and I could sense the cop’s blood starting to boil. Finally my dad said, in a very quiet, timid voice, “Is Dana here?”

“I said, are you armed?!” the cop yelled. My dad assured him he was not. I took a gamble and came down the stairs. “This is my dad,” I told the cop. “And here’s the thing: you’ve run my license already and you can see I have zero criminal record. I have nothing to do with any of this and my roommate probably already told you that. You guys have been through my room and there’s nothing there. Can I please, please just leave with my dad?” The cop thought it over and decided to let me go. (This was a very lucky break. I found out later my two roommates spent the night  on that sofa, handcuffed together while the cops finished tearing the place apart.) 

Before I left, I approached the cop who’d been in my room and politely asked if that was my Maglite he was carrying. He acknowledged that it was. “Would you be willing to leave it in my room before you go?” I timidly asked. Looking back, this was probably pushing my luck.

For some reason, my stepmother had parked a block or two away. As my dad and I walked to the car, I pondered what he must be thinking. This was not a “cool dad” with a wild past who had ever encountered anything like a drug bust. I mean, he was such a goody-two-shoes, he didn’t even touch alcohol or use swear words. As for firearms, he’d never even let my brothers and me have toy guns. Famously, when he found a toy gun in our house, belonging to one of our friends, he snatched it up, took it out to the street in front of our house, and ran it over with his VW bus. My dad was a principled man, a gentleman, a gentle man, and a prig. Plainclothes cops were not part of his world.

Not sure what to say, I remained quiet as we strolled down the sidewalk toward the car. My dad finally broke the silence. “Well,” he said, “that was interesting.”

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Family Shibboleths: a Glossary of Albert-isms

Family Shibboleths: a Glossary of Albert-isms

Last week I hosted my mom, two brothers, assorted nieces, and a nephew for Thanksgiving. My niece L— brought this custom-made Bingo card:

(A little explanation: CAlbert means a California Albert; WAlberts are the Washington state Alberts; and the W—s are other relatives from my mother’s side that came for lunch the next day.)

I dig this family Bingo concept. It’s a nice way to celebrate the little idiosyncrasies and oddities that make a family feel close. We didn’t actually compete at family Bingo; that would have required fourteen unique cards and people would have had to carry them around the whole time. Instead we just had the one card, posted to the fridge. As you can see, we fell just short of getting a complete blackout.

I think there’s room to refine this game and make it a tradition. First, we could have a card for each person, up on the fridge, and anyone could mark things off (that’s right—helping one another try to win). Second, we could improve on what goes in the squares. “Cats are unusually mean,” for example, could never apply in this household, because a) we have just one cat, and b) what counts as “unusually” mean, given that all cats are asocial predatory beasts? 

Meanwhile, “NPR plays in the background” could apply to many a Bay Area home, but not mine—I dislike talk radio of any kind and there’d be no way to hear it over the din of this many Alberts anyway. 

(As for the final missing square, “Someone spews their drink,” apparently the only reason this didn’t happen was that my nephew Peter couldn’t come; I’m told he “seems to make it his mission to make a sibling or relative laugh explosively while drinking, hoping that said drink will spew out of said relative’s nose.” Peter stayed home as he was required by his megalomaniac coach to attend basketball practice on Thanksgiving Day, just to kiss the ring and demonstrate that sport comes before family. But I digress.)

The family Bingo game got me thinking about why family gatherings are so enjoyable. For one thing, we get that comforting sense of belonging, of being among our tribe. The quirky, idiosyncratic lingo we tend to throw around helps cement this. (Of course my family isn’t alone in this; Roz Chast recounts here how she polled her friends to learn what term their families use for picking thru the fridge instead of cooking a meal; in her household they call this “fending.”)

I think of such linguistic peculiarities as a family shibboleth. In case you haven’t heard this term, Wikipedia defines it as “any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another.” Of course, I mean shibboleth in a good way; the origin of this word, from the Old Testament, is actually pretty dark: after a battle between the Gileadites and the Ephraimites, any Ephraimite refugees who were intercepted were challenged to pronounce “shibboleth,” because in their dialect it sounded like “sibboleth.” Anyone who pronounced it this way was identified as the enemy and immediately killed.

Clearly this isn’t the point where family gatherings are involved; naturally we want everybody well-versed in our lingo. Generally our members pick it up easily enough. For example, early in the visit when I asked my youngest niece, age nine, if she liked butter, she looked puzzled and said something like “um … sure,” instead of the right answer which is, “yeah …. mmmmmbutter” … but when I asked her again three days later she responded correctly. Notwithstanding her swift adaptation, the family lingo can certainly be bewildering to a newcomer, and my niece Laura, recently engaged, asked me to create a family glossary for her fiancé’s benefit. Any time somebody asks me to write something, especially on the subject of words and wordplay, I find the prospect irresistible (as you can see here and here).

And so, I’ve compiled a glossary of Albert-isms, replete with etymologies. What does this have to do with you, the lay albertnet reader? Well, for one thing, if you’re reading this, you’re probably my mom, or perhaps one of my brothers. And even if you’re not, you ought to find these amusing. Moreover, I’ve witnessed family gatherings where people were too quiet or seemed lacking in family shibboleths, so I hereby give you permission to totally steal these and introduce them into your own family dialogue. (If any of my family members don’t like this, they  can complain in the comments area below, or on their own social platforms).

I’ve grouped these into general categories, starting with food-related terms, since family gatherings tend to center around the kitchen. Next are the cinematic references my family is so fond of. The last section comprises the truly weirdest utterances, many of which celebrate important bits of family history dating back decades.

Culinary Albert-isms

• Jukebox – microwave oven (origin: Kitchen Confidential; until my older daughter went off to college, she had no idea that this term, and the next three, weren’t ubiquitous)
• Microbe – see “microwave oven”
• Nuke – to heat in a microwave oven (e.g., “I don’t feel like cooking, let’s just nuke some leftovers”)
• Radar love – the process of heating via microwave oven (e.g., “this isn’t hot enough, give it a little more radar love”; origin: Kitchen Confidential)
• Bell’s seasoning – the key to Thanksgiving and thus the subject of much discussion
• Tranja (pronounced “TRAHN-ya”) – any tasty beverage, including energy drink; often used in the statement, “Drink—it’s tranja. I hope you relish it as much as I” (origin: Star Trek)
• Pretty yum – delicious (origin: five-star Yelp review of a Dim Sum restaurant in San Francisco, ca. 2015)
• “Do you like butter?” / “Yeah, mmmbutter.” – standard verbal exchange whenever butter is present (origin: my friend Pete’s home-ec teacher back in, like, 1983, responding spontaneously when randomly asked if she liked butter)
• Lekker – see “pretty yum” (origin: from Netherlands Alberts)
• Splaula – spatula, especially a rubber spatula (origin: what my daughters and I thought my wife had written on her shopping list years ago, due to her encryption-like handwriting)

Cinematic Albert-isms

• “You’re not the quarterback here, Mike!” – Say this whenever somebody is overstepping or attempting to have too much influence. Do not substitute your interlocutor’s name for “Mike.” Always say “Mike.” (Origin: Breaking Away)
• “Cutter started it!” – Trot this out whenever you’re chastised for pointlessly bickering. It’s not important who actually started the argument, of course. (Origin: Breaking Away)
• “It’s a crazy world.” / “Someone oughtta sell tickets.” / “Sure, I’d buy one.” – Whenever you encounter an instance of the world being, in fact, crazy, you should say so, and then wait for the correct response, which is the bit about selling tickets. If this response is not received, pause a few beats and then say, “Sure, I’d buy one” anyway, to inspire your interlocutor to do better next time. (Origin: Raising Arizona)
• “Say, that reminds me.” – Use this whenever changing the subject, or even when continuing on the same subject, or whenever harmless verbal garnish is desired (source: Raising Arizona)
• “I’m defecatin’ you negative!” – This is a more family-friendly way of saying, “I shit you not.” It avoids both the profane word and its common synonym, “poop,” which is of course far worse. (Origin: Raising Arizona, with “defecatin’” substituting for “crappin’” which is still too risqué for the youngest Alberts)
• “I guess that’s why they call it a Way Homer.” – Say this whenever one of your jokes bombs. If your interlocutor replies, “Why’s that?” then you say, with much hilarity, “Cause you only get it on the way home!” Ideally, the next response will be, “I’m already home, Glen” (even if your interlocutor is not at home). This will have been a perfect volley. (Origin: Raising Arizona)
• “Does the pope wear a funny hat in the woods?” – This simply means “yes” or perhaps “hell yeah.” (Origin: combination of a quote from Raising Arizona and the expression, “Does a bear shit in the woods?”)
• “Two dollars! Two dollars!” (while walking like a zombie) – This one is a bit tricky. You have to walk slowly with your spine totally erect, your head back, your eyes fixed on a distant point on the ceiling, and arms outstretched (i.e., like a zombie), while chanting “Two dollars!” over and over. Do this when you don’t know what else to do; for example, if somebody is explaining why he or she went gluten-free. (Origin: Better Off Dead, combined with some random zombie-walking which my young Dutch nephew Max first encountered around the same time. He somehow conflated the two, having probably never even seen Better Off Dead, and his father later complained that Max was staggering around like a zombie chanting “two dollars!” pretty much nonstop. Thus this is a tribute to youthful enthusiasm and joie-de-vivre.
• “Good luck … we’re all counting on you.” – Say this whenever anyone is embarking on anything. This is one of those lines that somehow improves with age and repeated usage. (Origin: Airplane)
•  “Vaal is pleased.” – This is shorthand for “I am the eyes and ears of Vaal, and Vaal is pleased.” There’s no perfectly prescribed situation for using this; just exercise your best judgment. (Origin: Star Trek)

Particularly idiosyncratic Albert-isms

• Duh-huh or tuh-huh – just kidding. (Origin: when I first moved to California, I lived and worked with my brother Geoff; we biked to work and back together; we socialized together; in short, we were practically inseparable, and sometimes got a bit tired of one another, which could result in witty verbal exchanges that sometimes became caustic or acerbic. To soften this, we took to formally indicating the jocular nature of a comment by attaching “duh-huh” (which Geoff reckons is spelled “tuh-huh”) at the end. For example, we’d say something like, “Wait, you traveled three hours for this bike race and didn’t bring your UCSF license? Why would you think they’d let you register ... your good looks? Duh-huh!” Astonishingly, almost everyone we knew adopted this usage, including this one kid, Dave E, who couldn’t even say it right so it came out “duhhhht.” More than thirty years later, this is still standard usage among Alberts, across generations.)
• Mmmmmyello – this is how to answer the phone (origin: our friend Davey’s mom back in like 1980)
• Brrrowh – I don’t know (origin: contraction, over time, of “I dunno”)
• “Huh huh … no” – basically either “just kidding” or “scratch that” (origin: uttered by my friend Chris, as we were looking at VHS cassettes at the video store; he had suggested, “Let’s get Blame it on Rio” and then—realizing that his young lust was obviously the only possible motivation for wanting to see such a drippy movie—he got embarrassed and uttered the now immortal phrase, “huh huh … no” to try to retract it)
• “I need to drop some friends off in the toolit” – use this when you’re excusing yourself to go do a, uh, download. (Origin: the euphemism “drop some friends off at the pool,” warped unintentionally by a very young Albert, and spoken with a redneck accent for no clear reason)
• Micturate – urinate (this is certainly not an Albert coinage; it’s unclear how this became the family’s preferred term, given how seldom it’s typically used)
• “Okay, Christmas is canceled” – This is trotted out annually as a (so far empty) threat. (Origin: our mom said this repeatedly during our childhood, out of sheer exasperation at our awful behavior and/or her [and eventually everyone’s] contempt for the rampant commercialism of the holiday)
• Motherfrockle – motherf**er. (Origin: my niece Rachel, when very young, was verbally abused by another kid, and told her father but didn’t want to use the actual word, so he asked her to whisper it in his ear, and she put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “He called me a frockle!”)
• “I don’t wear contacts because I care about my eyes” – Say this whenever somebody mentions contacts, or puts them in, or takes them out, as a way to pass judgment. (Origin: our dad pompously declared this when he first learned I wear contacts; he followed it up with some long diatribe about how some lady friend of his, who had like the first generation hard contact lenses, slept in them and then they were stuck to her eyes; never mind that this was over forty years before and she was an idiot)
• EUx (Evil Uncle Dana, Evil Uncle Max, Evil Uncle Geoff) – All three uncles get the “Evil” moniker, and the standard abbreviation (e.g., EUD, EUM). (Origin: my brother Bryan was the first to have kids, and the last to become an uncle, so the rest of us got this label, mainly due to our actually being pretty much evil or at least a bad influence)
•  “What we need here is a Physics major.” – Say this to insult a sibling. You can substitute whatever college major you need; for example, during an argument about grammar you could say to me, “What we need here is an English major.” (Origin: during a long, complicated scientific discussion, which included possibly all his sons and definitely Bryan, our dad said this, as if to deny the very fact of Bryan’s major, which was indeed Physics.)
• “You are real lucky.” – Say this to any family member who seems even remotely lucky or successful, or who has avoided failure or cataclysm, as a way to deny that his or her good fortune has anything to do with character, pluck, or effort. You can also tell yourself this several times a day, as a way of feeling gratitude. It’s especially useful if, like me, you actually are real lucky. (Origin: our dad said to me, “You are real lucky you didn’t do more damage,” in angry response to [what he evidently perceived as] my utter incompetence, when I did some very minor damage to my car. Details are here.)
• “You’re not very bright, are you.” – Say this to any family member who says or does anything even slightly incorrect or questionable. (Origin: our dad famously, though perhaps apocryphally, said this to me after I rode 130 miles over the highest pass in North America without proper food or even a jacket and got caught in a thunderstorm; details are here.)
• “I’m going out there, don’t try to stop me. / You fool, you’ll be killed!  / I must do this … alone.” – Whenever you leave the house, utter the first statement. Your interlocutor should utter the second, and then you close out the dialogue with the third utterance. If your interlocutor neglects, or refuses, to provide the second statement, pause for a few beats and deliver the closing line anyway to inspire your interlocutor to do better next time.)
• “All over the place spaced-out BLEAAAH!” – This is a nice way to point out that a family member, particularly a teenager, has totally dropped the ball. (Origin: back in the ‘80s, our mom once completely lost her shit and delivered a powerful, thundering harangue including several instances of this very useful expression. The “BLEAAH!” part should be delivered with extreme gusto and high volume, ideally with your eyes practically bugging out. Note: do not deliver this diatribe in a library or museum.)
• “Bundle up Billy!” – Say this to any family member heading out into the cold, especially if you wish to advise and also demean the person (e.g., if you are talking to a teenager who finds the idea of a jacket, not to mention protective parenting, highly offensive). Do not substitute any other name for “Billy”—always use “Billy.” (Origin: actual quote concerning our friend Bill, whose loving mother said this to him and which we all took to saying to him constantly, all winter long, ad infinitum. Interesting aside: Bill now lives in Perm, Russia which isn’t technically Siberia but is halfway there; the average high temperature there in winter is just 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Bundle up, indeed!)
• “Come and get it or I’ll throw it out!” – what you say when the family meal is on the table (origin: one of those Time Life Old West books, probably The Cowboys; I read this sentence aloud to my mom and brothers back in like 1975 and it just stuck)
• Landlo’ – our mom’s second husband (origin: he actually was her landlord, and when he got greedy and said she either needed to buy the apartment or move out, she slipped between the horns of the dilemma by marrying him and thus moving in with him, which was a huge mistake as you can see here)
•  “Bye” – Obviously this word itself isn’t a family shibboleth, but we say it in a very specific way, waving annoyingly by opening and closing a hand, which is held up right next to our face, which wears an expression of utter disgust and dismissal; useful whenever a family member departs but particularly through a car window as the family member drives away. (Origin: this is how one of us, or perhaps all of us at one time or another, were kicked out of Green Scene, a go-kart track, for reckless driving, in the mid-‘80s)
• Slaap lekker – sleep well (origin: literally, “sleep tasty,” this is a standard Dutch expression brought to us by the Netherlands branch of the family)
• Don’t let the hmm-hmmms bite – don’t let the bedbugs bite (origin: this is what our brother Geoff used to say to his son Max because he was very young and the idea of bedbugs terrified him)
•  “You know, I really like [x]. I mean, I know that’s not profound or nothin’ … heck, we all do. But for me, I think  it goes far beyond that.” – This is really useful, every time you encounter something you like. It’s a way of expressing gratitude very formally and passionately. (Source: a “Far Side” cartoon)
• “Outta my way, mother daughter!” – This expression gets nearly constant use: pretty much whenever a wife, mother, or daughter is in your way. I have two daughters, a mom, a wife, and at least eight nieces, and thus say it probably 700 times a year. (Origin: during a violent dispute with my brother Max, then a teenager, my dad fled down the hall, with Max in hot pursuit, ready to beat his ass; our brother Bryan was squarely in the way, either to intervene or as a pawn caught in a deadly game, and Max yelled something similar to this, except that what he said was decidedly more profane, along the lines of “outta my way, motherfrockle!” Granted, this is a pretty dark memory to be dredging up all the time, but perhaps by saying this jovially we’re neutralizing that old trauma, or at least owning it.)

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