Our Man Grease

Yeah, I Figured That Much columnist Grease is a horse of a different color. (And yes, I like Pink Floyd.) His points are well taken, and often the topic to many husband and wife style bickering among the “Comments” section of any given post. But what Grease brings more than any other member of YIFTM is a seemingly endless series of nicknames.

I first knew him at Matt, then after a meal with his family in Jr. High, I knew him as Matthew. Near our senior year of High School I knew him as Hardware Matt, the origin of which he may be better at recalling. After a 2-year hiatus he was known The Mij, or Mij for short. This is of course due to his Croatian last name: Mijgreasivic.

After The Mij became well warn and universally used, he adopted the nickname Critta, or The Critta, or Tha Critta, or simply Critter. He is indeed an individual capable of producing copious amounts of body hair, so the horror movie connection seemed easily bridged if not warranted.

When he started working for us on this site, he was known as 1/2 of the underground improvisational Hip Hop/Electronic duo Improbotic. During this time he was referred to as Beatbox. That evolved into Treatbox (because supposedly he likes to give out treats, even though I’ve never seen one), then to Greasebox. (For a short time, and used only by me as a sarcastic gesture, he answered to Greasetreats.) Greasebox proved to be too long and tedious so the "box" was dropped and Our Man Matt became Our Man Grease.

The evolution of any legendary figure is never a brief process. The origin of Grease and all his encompassing nicknames is no exception.