Ash

In honor of our next President, I thought I'd share a funny story with you. This is NOT a racist story, by ANY means. I promise.

So, in high school, Dave played football. He played in Texas and Virginia. Most of his teammates were black (or is it African American?). At any rate, in the locker room these guys would always be asking him for lotion to take care of their 'ash'. Ash, if you don't know, is what happens to black skin when it gets really dry -- it turns scaly and white and looks like 'ash'. So, the conversations would be something like this, "Yo, Blaser, pass me some lotion -- I got ash!" or "Shoo, brother, you got lotion? I's got ash". Dave: "Why would I have lotion?" ...

Okay, fast forward about 7-8 years, Dave and I are married, living in Provo. I'm expecting Eden, so by this time I'd heard his football stories more than once. At the time, I was getting my MBA at BYU. I worked part-time in the admissions office. One of my co-workers and colleagues, Sean, was black. We were good friends, but he also knew how "utah" and "white" I was.

So, I had left the office to run an errand, and he had some other students in there and was trying to explain what ash was, and that NO ONE in Utah had ever heard of it. Just then he saw me walking back down the hall and told his friends, "Okay, here comes Jennie. I'll prove my point. No one is more Utah or white than Jennie. Let's see if she's heard of ash". In I walk and he says, "Jennie, do you know what ash is?" Immediately I remember Dave's stories and my reply is likety-split, in my best southern accent:

"Shoo, brother! Pass me some lotion. I got ASH!"

Sean literally fell off his chair laughing. The other guys there were also laughing so hard they started crying! Pretty funny. So there, now you know what ash is!