Struck by Grease Lightning

Last updated on May 10, 2016

I don’t do things halfheartedly, I try my best – always- even when I make a total fool out of myself. 

It all begun so harmless. I just went to visit a good friend; she had called me earlier and had asked for my help. We solved her problem fairly quickly; then we made tea and sat down in the living room.

Her granddaughter and two friends of hers joined us, they wanted to watch a movie, a classic movie so they said. We didn’t mind, we continued talking and the kids started watching the movie.

Right at the start we turned our heads because the classic movie was Grease; what I found rather amusing because it made me instantly feel older than dirt.

Grease is not just a movie, Grease is MY movie; I watched it at least 5 times between the age of 14 and 16. I know everything about the movie and I mean EVERYTHING. This movie turned my little world upside down. It taught me that a good girl only gets the man of her dreams, when she starts to dress like a vamp and starts smoking on top of it.

I couldn’t really change the way I dressed -not without risking my life- but I started smoking right then and there in the movie theater- with all the other kids my age- and I blame my 35-year old smoking career entirely on John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

I am blonde with blue eyes and thought it was alright to look like Sandra  Dee until…well, you guessed it, until Stockard Channing made fun of Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) when she sang, “Look at me I am Sandra Dee.”

That was a game changer for me. I got a perm the very next day and looked like a poodle for about 1 year. Everything was better than looking like Sandra Dee and so I wore my poodle look with pride. I really didn’t have a choice, they call it a perm and they mean it.

We continued to drink our coffee and both of us were tapping our feet to the music. We did good, we survived the first songs without any major embarrassments. Everything was fine, until Sandy started singing, “Hopelessly devoted to you.”

What can I say, that just did it. We both started singing out loud. We might be in an age, where we can’t remember what we ate yesterday or who we wanted to call, but we can still remember every word of song lyrics that we learned almost 40 years ago.

The girls looked at us in total disbelieve. Neither one of us is known for a good singing voice, and neither one of us is the type to jump up and dance. Our unusual behavior must have come as a surprise to the girls. Now in retrospect I like to blame it on the tea, there must have been something in that “made” us do it.

We didn’t sing quietly, no, we sang our little hearts out and had a ball. And it got worse! The girls looked at us in disbelieve when we started dancing in the kitchen to “Grease lightning.” It’s not just that we still now the lyrics; we know the dance moves as well.

Why this car is automatic
It’s systematic
It’s hydromatic
It’s grease lightning

(What does hyromatic even mean?)

Fascinating in my case is, that I learned the song lyrics at a time when I didn’t speak English. I watched  the movie Grease in a small Austrian movie theater in German, only the songs were in English. I learned to sing all of them, even though I didn’t speak the language. I translated the words with the help of a dictionary word by word and not everything made sense. Nevertheless, I learned it all.

There we were, two 50+ old, middle-aged ladies, behaving like teenagers. We both confessed that we still would like to have a pink satin jacket, just like the ones that were worn by the Pink Ladies in the movie. Can you believe it, how ridiculous is that? I guess some things keep their magic over the years.

We had such a good time and laughed so hard when we shared our memories about the movie, we didn’t even notice that the girls had left the room. We watched the movie to the end and enjoyed every minute of it. It felt like time travel and it made us feel like teenagers, just for a short while.

I assume it was the last classic movie the girls will ever watch in our presence, but I do hope they change their minds and give us another chance with Saturday Night Fever. 🙂