Esko, esko!
📦 THAT’S THE PACKAGE: Declaring that something is complete and acceptable as a whole, including flaws, trade offs & limits
My grandpa's favorite expression has always been, that's the package.
He said it for everything, as a marker of finality and satisfaction.
Trade show was closed, that's the package.
Paid the check at dinner, that's the package.
After the football game was over, that's the package.
Thanksgiving karaoke wrapped up for the night, that's the package.
Sank our final putts into the eighteenth hole, that's the package.
Contractors just finished painting the garage, that's the package.
I don't know anyone else who says this phrase. Our family likes to repeat it a lot to pay homage to grandpa, but I can honestly say I've never heard another person use the expression in the same way he does.
There are many variations.
Well, that's that. Guess we're done here. That's all she wrote. End of story. Done and done. Call it a day. That'll do, donkey. Ship it. Case closed. Let's bounce. Put a bow on it. And that's the end of that chapter.
All of those pale in comparison to, that's the package.
The idiom itself usually means, those are all the components. Like an infomercial. Quality, innovation, and sustainability. That's the package you get when you choose to work with us!
My grandpa ran our family closeout business for over forty years, so I assume the phrase goes back to some kind of literal package.
I picture him on a warehouse floor in the seventies, cigarette dangling, clipboard tucked under his arm, telling a buyer:
Sure, these mugs are ugly, the handles are chipped, the glaze might poison your kids, and they absolutely will explode in the microwave. But you’re getting a hundred thousand of these mugs for twenty cents apiece. Jimmy, this is a homerun. No returns. No complaints. No follow up calls. That’s the package.
Although growing up, my reference for the expression was always more figurative. Because that's the package is more than just finishing something, it's about accepting the whole situation. Positive and negative aspects as an inseparable whole. Certain difficulties are an inherent part of something they value, like a relationship or a personal challenge.
Fine. That's the package.
I used to joke with my family that on my grandpa's tombstone, it's simply going to read, that's the package. In fact, when he's in the hospital taking his dying breath, looking at his family surrounding him, he'll probably just say to the nurse, that's the package. Then it's lights out.
That's not morbid to me. I can't think of a more fitting way to go out. I may never have a catchphrase that good for the rest of my life. Once you say, that's the package, you've stopped negotiating with reality. Good.
Think how much of our suffering comes from trying to call bullshit on what is. Stupid, stupid, stupid. We need finality and satisfaction in this life. It's the only way to make it out alive. You have to celebrate the fact that things are done, without clinging. Without expecting them to exist in perpetuity until the rest of time.
That’s the package is like, we did it. Esko, esko!
# # #
I recently made a film about this very phrase.
My latest project is 75 years in the making.
Lost Korean War footage. Shot by my grandfather Frank Ginsberg in the early 1950s. Digitized decades later. Narrated by him and my grandmother. Edited and scored with original music by me.
This film is unexpectedly funny, human, and full of young soldiers choosing joy as a survival strategy.
Here’s the press release, here’s the album on Spotify, and here’s the full movie: