Blanche DuBois Lives and Worries About Me

I got back tonight from a business trip to warm Alabama. (That sounds absurd--a writer on a "business trip." Fun to use the phrase for that very reason.) Anyway, I'm on the second leg of the trip--Detroit to New York, wearing sandals--and I get on the plane. I glance through First Class and there's a familiar old-woman face, framed in a lime green shirt of some kind. Hm, who is that? The Shins are pumping through my headphones, so I don't hear her when she speaks to me.

"What?" I ask, yanking out an ear plug.
"Your toesies! Your toesies are going to be so cold in New York!"

My mind freezes up, apparently, because I can figure out how to answer her because most of my lobes are full of the question of who she is.

I mumble out something like, "Just...came...from...Alabama..."

I walk a few steps, turn to the guy behind me and ask, "Is she some kind of actress?"

"Yeah, but I don't know who," he says. Then he gives me some line about being a jaded New Yorker who barely cares about these things. Whatever.

Two more steps...her name is forming in my head...the show is almost on my tongue...

"The Golden Girls! Blanche DuBois!"

"Yesss!" the guy agrees. Unfortunately, he goes on as we pass the not-impermeable curtain that divides First Class from Coach: "She looked so OLD on that show, but I guess she was the youngest one..."

It was a little loud. I hope Blanche didn't hear. The woman looks good for whatever Golden age she's reached. You go, Blanche.