The Crisps, The Bloods, and The Lion Kings

I love my grandpa. I was the first grandchild, and I was a girl, so my Grandpa Harold spoiled me ROTTEN. I mean, really rotten. When I was little he would take me Toys R Us and FAO Schwartz like every weekend and bought me so many stuffed animals my mom didn't know what to do with them. That's not the only reason I love my grandpa, I love him even more now because he does really cool things with me. Like buy me tickets to The Book of Mormon, which is hands down the best musical EVER. So yeah, my grandpa's awesome. Here's another reason why he's awesome.

So, my grandpa is an oral surgeon. He's a dentist, but the type that takes your teeth out. Like your wisdom teeth. After he semi-retired, he started helping out at a correctional facility. That's a fancy word for "jail". After a couple weeks of working on "the inside", my grandpa decided to share some secret knowledge he gleaned. About gangs.

So, we're in a restaurant (another great thing about my grandpa, he always takes us to really nice restaurants and always treats) and my grandpa says in a hushed voice, "Hey, Rebecca...do you know what that is?" And he does something weird with his hand. It kind of looks like Phoebe from Friends, when she's trying to teach Joey guitar? And all of the chords have their own hand gestures and names for what they look like? Well, I think my grandpa just made the hand gesture for the "Old Lady". Anyway I say cautiously, "Nooooo...." My grandpa lowers his voice even more and says (completely serious), "That's the gang sign for 'The Crisps'." The Crisps??? I try to stifle a laugh and say to him, "You mean The Crips??" "Yeah, yeah, that," my grandpa says, "You know, there's a lot of gangs in there. There's even some members from The Lion Kings!" 

Now, I really can't contain my laughter. I choke on my water and stutter and manage to get out, "You mean the Latin Kings? Oh my god..." and I continue to laugh. By now, the rest of my family members at the table want to know what is so funny, so I let them in on my and my grandpa's conversation and now the entire table is laughing so hard, we all just simultaneously peed ourselves. That being said, I would just love to live in a world where the most dangerous and notorious gangs are named after cereal and Disney movies. 

Oh, those grandpas. So naive...