Yellow Grease (standard:Satire, 1783 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Nov 01 2010	Views/Reads: 6912/3431	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A funny story on collection of used grease from fast food restaurants

YELLOW GREASE 

By 

Subba Rao 

Jimmy ran his company “Grease Man” from a small tool shed in a poor
neighborhood. The company logo “Grease Man” was written boldly on a 
large picture of a 55-gallon drum painted on both sides of his pick-up 
truck.  He was not in the business of selling grease or cooking oil to 
the restaurants but he collected used cooking oil from the fryers for 
re-cycling. 

“Hey Jimmy, you were supposed to pick up the grease last week,” said
Christie, one of the girls at “Chicken, all you can eat,” a 
neighborhood restaurant. 

“Yeah, I couldn't make it last week, my vacuum pump broke down you know,
I just got it fixed.” Jimmy immediately started pumping the grease into 
one of the drums on his truck muttering “man, this is yellow gold.” 

Though, restaurant workers called Jimmy  “Grease Man”, he didn't mind at
all since he was making pretty good living by peddling grease. At the 
other end of the town, Billy ran “Fat Man,” another grease collection 
outfit.  Billy was fat and never liked anybody call him as fat man. He 
pained “Fat Man, Grease Recycling Company,” in bold letters in yellow 
on both sides of his truck. 

Jimmy and Billy competed against each other, and turned the restaurant
grease recycling into a cutthroat business. Jimmy was a veteran in the 
business and Billy started later in the grease business. The teenage 
workers in the fast food chains didn't have a clue about all the fuss 
about collecting the foul smelling, yellow grease from the fryers. The 
grease clouded with drippings from hamburger cooking, with floating 
burnt-out batter drippings from fried chicken and fish, and small 
pieces of French fries, smelled bad. The grease turned sour and rancid 
with strong spicy odor within a few days of storage in outside 
containers for pick-up. But for Jimmy and Billy “the yellow grease” was 
“Yellow Gold.” The “Grease Man” and “Fat Man” competed against each 
other by stealing grease from each other's accounts. 

The restaurants contracted with either one of the two companies for
disposal of the mess once the cooking oil was unfit for further cooking 
in their fryers. 

Jimmy hated winter months when the grease solidified, and he had to
shovel it or worse use his hands to scrape it. “What's wrong with the 
kids?” Jimmy thought loudly several times when he found all kind of 
stuff like plastic forks, spoons, emptied tomato ketchup cups etc., in 
storage drums with yellow grease outside the restaurants. The workers 
at fast food chains have no understanding of what it takes for Jimmy or 
Billy to clean up the yellow grease before it can be sold to the animal 
feed industry. 

Jimmy made a ton of money in collecting the used restaurant grease for
free, and selling it for use in animal feed before Billy got into the 
business.  The feedlot owners fattened the cows and hogs by feeding 
them the recycled restaurant grease or yellow grease. The animals loved 
their feed laced with the spicy restaurant grease, and gained weight by 
munching on the meal soaked in yellow grease - the animals got their 
share of grease without going to restaurants like us. 

Billy's “Fat Man” grease recycling company cut deep into Jimmy's
monopoly in the grease business and the “Grease Man” started to shrink 
slowly. 

Jimmy started paying a small fee to the restaurants for their grease to
keep his contract with the restaurants, and to keep Jimmy away from 
taking his business. The Fat Man Billy was no dummy either, he paid a 
penny more per pound for rancid grease than Jimmy did, and on top of it 
he distributed frozen turkeys as gifts for thanksgiving to the 
restaurant managers. 

The price paid to the restaurants for picking up the yellow grease did
not affect the bottom line for either Jimmy or Billy since both cheated 


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