INTRO MUSIC
There are certain things that are easy to remember about the dead:
That they’re dead. Although, sometimes your brain WILL let you forget, just for a moment or two, and you’ll think, “I should text my dad!” or “Aaron would love this!”
How they died, especially if you were there, and especially if it was gruesome or traumatic.
But there’s so much more to a person than how they died, and so when I know a person is grieving the death of a loved one … I say, “Tell me about them.” Not about how they died — WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW? But tell me about THEM. Tell me what made them special, what made them laugh, how they made YOU laugh. Tell me what you’ll know about them forever.
My husband Aaron loved the pop star Robyn. He loved pop culture. You know how people used to type out, “I h8 this?” He would type, “I h9 it,” because that’s more than h8 … and it’s really a joke that works more visually than anything else but still, it works. And when I really like a friend, I introduce them to this.
My dad used to jokingly — JOKINGLY! — threaten to give us a spanking, but he’d call it a “hot hinder,” and now my boys will rub their hands together menacingly and say, “WHO WANTS A HOT HINDER?!”
When my dad washed my son Ralph’s face as a baby or toddler, he’d cup water in his hand and vigorously rub it over his face — again, this works best visually Today, that’s how my boys like their faces washed. They’ll lean over a sink and say, “GIMME THE GRUMPY WASH!” Grumpy was my Dad’s grandpa name.
These are the little things that keep a person alive. And they’ll keep going. And eventually, even when nobody who knew my dad is even ALIVE — some little kid will say, “GIMME THE GRUMPY WASH!” And their parent will cup water over their palms and wash their face like a cartoon character.
SO.
We have this thing called The Terrible Club. It’s a Facebook group for listeners who have supported the show financially, and it’s also a nice little community.
And one day, one of our listeners posted the idea for this show.
Lynn Smith: My husband, Andy, died in February of 2016. A vibrant, funny, smart, witty man was suddenly gone. Through the mechanical processes that occur when someone dies, it felt like his entire life was being erased, so I purchased two bricks with his name. One is in the Portland, Oregon, Pioneer Plaza and one is in Carpinteria, California. But I don’t see either of them every day. In fact, I may never see other them again, so I try to imprint him onto others. He was from Scotland and had so many unique phrases. I try to keep him from being erased by keeping some of those uniquely andI phrases and words alive. One from his mum was mousetrap cheese. The term for Cheddar. If you’re going to the market with your shopping list, it would include nice cheese by name Manchego, Brie, or the list would say mousetrap. I love the term and hope my kids will continue to use it.
Sometimes, I just know an episode when I see it.
I immediately knew what Lynn meant: how we become vessels that carry the memory of the people we’ve lost … how the little things about them really are the big things.
And I asked Lynn if she’d tell us about Andy.
And about Mousetrap Cheese.
Lynn Smith: The first time I heard mousetrap cheese? I was probably visiting Scotland with my husband. It was before we were married. And met his mum, who lives in St. Andrews. Or, she lived in St. Andrews. She’s passed. And she, we were probably going to the cheesemonger, because in St. Andrews, they have such thing as a cheesemonger. And she asked us to pick up some mousetrap, and I don’t know what I thought at the time. I mean, the first time I went to Scotland, I really didn’t understand anybody. It wasn’t until I got used to the accent that I started to understand. So I probably asked Andy, you know, “What? What, what is your mum talking about?” And and then, you know, it’s just such a such a great phrase that we, you know, we used it. I don’t know that he ever used it before he heard his mum is it?
Nora McInerny: What, what did she mean by mousetrap? When she told you to get mousetrap, what did she mean?
Lynn Smith: Cheddar, just cheddar cheese, anything that you’d stick in a mousetrap, you wouldn’t stick your really good cheese in a mousetrap. You’d stick the cheddar.
Nora McInerny: That’s so funny, that’s so funny. So the first time that I heard the phrase mousetrap cheese was in the terrible club.
Lynn Smith: I was just in a mood that day, I think and thinking about Andy and just how I just don’t want his uniqueness to disappear, you know, so I’m from the states, my kids are all here, and they had never heard that term before. And so Sandy just used it all the time. And and when I mentioned it to to my kids, they said, Oh yeah, mousetrap, you know, so it really has become part of their lexicon now. I was just thinking about him and wrote about how I just really wanted him to continue in some way. And then people responded on that Facebook page about they really liked it and they, several people said they’re going to start using that term because it’s just so fun.
Nora McInerny: This will be the beginning of this episode for us because you are the reason that we’re making this episode. You and Andy are the reason why we’re making this episode. So we asked a lot of people to send us their version of mousetraps cheese. And so that we can all hear these little things that made our people, their people. And maybe we’ll pick up some new phrases. Maybe we’ll pick up some new habits. And these things that we love about our people are going to live on in strangers who will spread the word. So really, Lynn, I just want to thank you. I want to thank you for sharing mousetrap cheese, for sharing Andy, and for making it possible for everybody in this episode to do the same.
Lynn Smith: I love it. I love it, I love it. That just makes me so happy.
It makes us happy, too. We have a whole episode of things like this over on Terrible, Thanks for Asking called Tell me About Them. It’s filled with goofy things like mousetrap cheese that can help us help other people keep their dead people alive.
OUTRO MUSIC
CREDITS
