Good Stuff

The day before the first night of Hanukkah we were out running errands with my dad.  It's fun on these trips around town with my dad.  He seems to know everyone everywhere we go and even if he doesn't he has something to say to everyone.  Our last stop took us to the small town music store right next door to our local bagel bakery.  My dad has a major, and by major I mean gigantic, sweet spot for chocolate chip cookies (or as they're known in my family - CCC's).  So of course we had to pop into the bakery for a little treat.  One chocolate chip cookie, snicker-doodle, and corn-lime cookie later Lukas and I thought we were heading home, but when we got outside we realized that we'd lost my dad somewhere inside the bagel shop.  Poking our heads back inside we found him talking to a man he knew.  They followed us outside talking excitedly.  All we could hear was my dad say, "You got some right here?"  The guy responded, "Yeah, well... it's at my shop.  You want some riiight now?"  "Yeah!  We've got to get the good stuff."  Then my dad tossed me the keys to the car and called over his shoulder, "Follow us over there."  The other guy offered a little bit more helpful direction, "We're just going down 10th street."  And then they were gone.  Bewildered, Lukas and I got in the car, watched them drive in the opposite direction and then proceed to drive down 10th street, because that's all the direction we had.  Finally as the road looked to be ending we pulled to the side wondering where they could be.  A glance in the rearview mirror showed them coming our way about a block away.  So a quick u-turn later we were pulling into the parking lot of a big mauve colored building with a sign for a hubcap store hanging above the door.  We all hoped out and followed our "tour guide" around to a side entrance and into another world.  Inside were big machines, bright lights and marimbas in many different stages of partial completion.  All very cool, but... what the heck were we doing in a marimba factory?!  In a rear corner of the shop we stopped at a pallet stacked with white boxes and our guide began to tell us a story.  He had sold some marimbas to someone in Greece a while back.  When it came time to finish up the payment the Greek didn't quite have enough cash to complete the payment.  Instead, he asked if the marimba guy would accept some of his award winning olive oil, "the good stuff".  And so our host said, "This is the best olive oil you'll ever try.  I'm going over to Greece in just a week to try to broker a deal importing this stuff.  So, how many cases do you want?"  Upon hearing the going rate for a bottle my dad figured it would be best to try one bottle first before selling the cow.  And this is how in a dark corner of a marimba shop we came to purchased our bottle of the best olive oil in what felt slightly like a drug deal.  Only the best for our first latkes of Hanukkah.