The Ombudsmen and the Grey Panthers

I never got to meet either of my grandfathers because they both died before I was born.  I know very little about my Finnish grandpa because my family doesn't seem to talk about him much.  There were a few rumors floating around but the only things I know for sure about him are his name and that he was bald.  The latter I found out from my mom when I learned that baldness is an X-linked trait and decided to investigate whether I would find the same fate.

My American grandpa, my dad's dad, on the other hand is someone whom I wish I had met.  My father has told me so much about him and he sounds like he was one cool cat.  He was an amazing artist, many of the paintings I have up in my house are his.  He played Spanish guitar on an old acoustic that I found, dust covered, in my parent's attic just two weeks ago.  When my dad and I went to see Austin Powers, my dad came out saying that grandpa, being an avid James Bond fan, would have loved that movie.  There were stories about how he would mishear things.  For example when someone said "Would you pass me a kleenex" and my grandfather would reply "WHAT! The Dodgers are playing in Phoenix?!"

But, unfortunately he died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, before I was born.  (On a side note some versions of A.L.S. are hereditary and symptoms include a nasally voice, hmmmmm interesting) 

Yesterday I learned two brand new stories about my grandfather which has made me want to meet him even more.  I went to Costco with my dad to buy some steaks, eat the free samples and look at various cameras (I am in the market).  On the way out we passed a white zion car, a compact, which was very blatantly taking up two parking spots.  My dad paused in the middle of whatever he was doing and said, "I hate it when people do that".  I too hate it when people do that but I am a lot like George Costanza from Seinfeld.  I get all indignant but I rarely have the courage to do anything about it.  My dad pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and writes "ASSHOLE!" on it and puts it under the wind shield wiper of the car.

We load up our groceries and on the way home he begins to tell me about my grandpa's idea of the Ombudsmen.  If you do not know (I had to look it up), an ombudsman is a person who is appointed by a governing body to investigate the complaints of citizens.  In my grandpa's imagination, the ombudsmen were a government organization who had the power, by law, no questions asked, to kill ten people a day on the grounds that they were being assholes.  That was their job, their federally appointed and funded job.  It could be because you closed a shelter for orphans to build a mini-mall or because you tail gated on the freeway, or, in this case, you had a feeling of entitlement and thought that your car deserved more space in a crowded parking lot.  Boom, ten of 'em, off the streets, everyday.  With a big smile I imagined helicopters and snipers and car-bombs.

The other story, which was along the same lines as the previous in that it was a means of dealing with assholes, was about a militant organization called The Grey Panthers, obviously referencing the black organization of the 1960s.  The Grey Panthers was, once again in my grandfather's delightfully creative imagination, an organization only open to people over the age of 70.  When there was a public nuisance it was the job of a member of the GPs who had led a long and fulfilling life to "take out" that nuisance in a way that I can only imagine being suicide bombing.  

For this grandpa, I love you.

So the next time you think about taking up two parking spots, cutting someone off, blasting your music so loud it rattles the other cars around you, or anything else slightly asshole-esque, Beware...for you never know...when the Ombudsmen...or the Grey Panthers...are watching.

Now bonne nuit...bonne nuit to you all.