I work with two of my best friends. We’ve only known each other 10 months but we’re as close as sisters. Linda is a tiny thing, a little Energizer Bunny at 61. Then there’s me at 59, and Suze, the French fry, is 51.
Linda is a giggler, like I am. Once she starts laughing there’s no stopping her. We just look at each other and crack up over the silliest things. Suze is always perplexed. “What? What’s so funny? What’d I say?” Linda was born and raised in Queens, NY, Suze in Long Island, and I’m from North Jersey, 20 minutes from Manhattan, so you can imagine what we must sound like to the southerners we work with. We’re like Judge Judy, Fran Fine, and Joy Behar. I even have a hard time understanding us sometimes.
When I walked into work this afternoon I nodded at them and said, “Laverne…Shirley”, and Linda started to giggle. Suze whined in her famous Long Island nasal way, “I wanna be Laverne, I’m taller!” which made Linda reach for her inhaler before she choked to death.
That got us wondering about the actress who played Laverne’s father’s girlfriend. I only remembered that she was a dancer when she was young. Linda remembered that she was married to the actor who played Al Jolson. Suze thought Al Jolson was a boxer. She’s so young!
I hate when that happens. I refuse to wrack my brain trying to think of a name when I know there’s no hope of remembering it, so I left it to Linda to figure out. The only time I remember things is in the middle of the night when there’s no one awake to tell. Years ago, my husband called from work to ask if I knew the name of the singer from a group (can’t remember which one now) that he and his co-workers couldn’t think of. I woke up from a sound sleep that night saying “David Clayton Thomas! Wake up! David Clayton Thomas!”
He didn’t appreciate that.
Anyhow, hours later Linda was ringing up a customer when it hit her. “Betty Garrett! Her name is Betty Garrett!” That must have triggered something in my brain because I remembered her husband’s name instantly. “Larry Parks!” What a relief!
Suze was slicing a tomato and she held a slice up and said, “Eww…this is so pithy.” Pithy? Like a Dorothy Parker comment? I didn’t want to have to explain who Dorothy Parker was so I just stared at her.
“You know, pithy, mealy, mushy”, she said.
“Donald Duck’s nephews?”, I asked. I heard a snort and looked over at Linda. She was almost on the floor laughing. She said, “I wanna be Mealy! I’m shorter!”
So we have new names. Suze is Pithy, Linda is Mealy, and I’m Mushy,
the three Mouthketeers.
