Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?

CATEGORY: LIFE, UP CLOSE

When I was a teenager, not even driving age yet, me and my buddies would get picked up by one of our moms from gymnastics practice in a carpool and taken home. This was around the time that Wayne's World, the movie, came out. I was probably 14. 

One of our favorite gags was to roll down our rear window of the car and make the other car at a stoplight roll down their window… and ask them if they had any Grey Poupon.

As was done in the Wayne's World movie itself. Inevitably, the other person in the car would laugh, and we’d roll up our window and everybody would go their own way.

Original Grey Poupon commercial:

So we did this on and off for like a year or so. But on my 16th birthday, I had a birthday party of sorts at Six Flags, and my friend Matt Kiser from the carpool gave me a present. He presented me with a gift bag—tissue paper sticking out the top—and I was like, "Oh, thanks, Matt," and opened it. Inside was one single jar of Grey Poupon, which was hilarious, and everybody started laughing because it was such a funny and thoughtful gift.

And so I thought the only thing I can do with this Grey Poupon is put it in my glove compartment of the old Volvo that I had just started driving. It was a baby blue Volvo 240 GL named Valerie Alice. Not quite sure how I came up with that name. It was an older car and had a crank sunroof, and, well, that car probably has its own substack worth of stories.

Anyway, I put the Grey Poupon in the glove compartment, just in case anybody ever asked me, for it. I wanted to be able to reply like, "But of course," and then hand them the jar. I thought that would be the ultimate hilarious moment.

And life moved on. I was driving, I was 16, having fun, and at some point in the next year or two, being an irresponsible teenager, I did not renew my registration for my car and got pulled over by a police officer. Not for speeding, not for driving irresponsibly, but because my registration had been expired by like a month. This was the first time I'd ever been pulled over, and it was terrifying. I was shaking. The adrenaline was so intense. I couldn't even really move my arms properly, and I was terrified. I remembered from my driver's training to keep my hands on the wheel and then tell the officer what I was doing. So I rolled down the window. 

The officer said, "Hey, I pulled you over because of your inspection sticker. Can I please see your license and your insurance?" I said, "Yes, sir," and told him I'm going to reach over to my glove compartment to get my insurance, and he said, "Ok." 

My shaking arm reached over and opened the glove compartment, and as I'm shakily pulling the insurance out of the glove compartment to give to him, he says to me, "Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?"

At which point I freeze and realize what he's asking about, because I could see it right there. The pristine jar of Grey Poupon is sitting right in my glove compartment in plain sight. So I pull myself together, pick it up and, holding it with one hand on a platform of my other hand like Vanna White making a presentation of a prize, I turn around and am like, "But of course.”

He was cracking up and I was laughing too, at this point. He says, "I'm going to give you a warning. Get that taken care of. Have a great afternoon."

So the moral of this story is: always carry Grey Poupon in your glove compartment—because you never know when somebody is going to need it.