Cloyce steak

A friend of Dad's, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, had decided that he wanted steak for dinner. So he went to the grocery store and bought a large steak, at the then whopping sum of $5 (it was in the early 1950s). But on the way home on what was a stifling day he decided, in Pops's words, to stop for a tall, cold one. Cloyce left the steak on the front seat of his car.

When he came out of the bar, the steak was gone. As I said this was early 50s, so folks rarely locked their car doors. Well, Cloyce was upset. But still, he really wanted steak, so he went back to the store and bought another even at the then high cost. He was that determined to have steak.

A few minutes later he walked triumphantly into his house. "Guess what we're having for dinner?" Cloyce called to his wife.

"Steak," came the reply from the kitchen. It turns out Mrs. Cloyce had been walking by the bar while Cloyce was having his cold one, recognized the car and, seeing the steak, knew it would go bad quickly on the hot day. So she opened up the car and took the food home. But she neglected to look for Cloyce, knowing that he was not necessarily in the bar as in the old neighborhood there were various stores all over and he really could have been anywhere. She just wanted to get the steak home and start cooking it.

So Cloyce had steak two days in a row. Pops said that it was considered a win-win.