Make a list this Monday

Michelle gave us our assignment for making a list
Today's assignment is to share a few choice family "isms". My family, the Weaver clan, has a group of things that we say that no one else really gets that we think are hilarious. For today list a few things you and your family say regularly that put you in stitches and let us in on the joke. It still may not be funny to the rest of us but it will let us in on the story behind the words!
It was hard to think of relevant things and then I thought ah yes "The Grey Scrubber". That's what I am known as in the family. I am really good at tidying and cleaning (possibly my major skill) and this has been put to good use over the past month or so in getting the house at Bruce Street clear for sale. In 1980 (the title has been around that long) my mother wrote to me while I overseas and in this particular letter she was again telling me the details of her daily life and how during the week she needed thing tidier and cleaner and she "missed her grey scrubber". The name comes from a great trilogy by Mervyn Peake- The Gormenghast series.
An excerpt ... "The walls of the vast room which were streaming with calid moisture, were built with gray slabs of stone and were the personal concern of a company of eighteen men known as the 'Grey Scrubbers'.... On every day of the year from three hours before daybreak until about eleven o'clock, when the scaffolding and ladders became a hindrance to the cooks, the Grey Scrubbers fulfilled their hereditary calling."
I have made a page about this but it's in my apartment in NYC so posting a picture will have to wait until I get back there later in the month.

The next thought of sayings used amongst friends and family arose from an incident when trying to purchase a bagel on Staten Island on my way to work. I went into the store and ordered my bagel and in opening my wallet realized I needed to get more cash as I'd used the last of it the night before paying for my taxi. So I said to the woman at the cash register 'I'm sorry I have no cash do you know where there is an ATM?" (You need to remember I am Australian and according to Americans have an accent- it's them that have the accent)
The woman looked at me as though I was odd and sought to clarify what I'd said by asking
"An older man?"
Me- No an automatic teller machine
She- Oh an ATM!
She (yelling across the store) Do you know where there's an ATM?
Me- It's okay, I'll be back in a minute.
I walked out of the shop across a lane and into the supermarket, I asked where the ATM was (they understood me) and accessed some cash.
Returning to the store, as I paid for the bagel, the woman apologized and I told her it was fine she gave me the biggest laugh for the day. And subsequently a great story and saying .... when I need to get cash out I always look for an "older man" ...... And I'm always on the look out for an older man with money!

I'll need to ponder further the other little isms our family uses because there are plenty I know but just can't think at the moment.