Betty, please.

My family and I have been holding our closed fists to our mouths on and off for nearly 27 years saying, "Betty, please. Betty, pick up." Pretending to speak into a microphone the words from an episode of Laverne and Shirley that we'd only seen ONCE. In the many years that have gone by since watching that show, I've never spoken to one person outside of my immediate family who'd seen the Betty, please episode. I'd come to believe that we never actually saw it. Maybe we're all crazy and we made it up together in an attempt to entertain ourselves. Now I have the video evidence that proves we're not crazy. We're just wacky and silly. Last night was the night when everything came together at the right place, at the right time, and led me to the video clip I'd been thinking about and laughing about, for years and years. Thanks to the invention of You Tube and to a fan of old sit-coms, the all-time greatest episode of Laverne and Shirley (dang! You Tube removed it!) is on the screen in front of me. I snorted more than once as I laughed, which for me is the true measure of comedy. It makes me snort. (Please click on the link so that you can watch it and snort, too. I don't want you to feel left out.)

I immediately called my parents and both of my sisters to tell them of the great find, and I emailed the link so that each of them could watch it. I listened on the phone as one of my sisters watched it and laughed, bringing back the memories of our summer of 1981 car trip to Indiana. At every restaurant we visited on the way there and back, one of us would start with the "Betty, please" after a waitress would take our order. You would have thought we would quickly get sick of it, but we didn't. We'd laugh and laugh some more.

This Laverne and Shirley episode was first aired on May 6, 1980. (I didn't always know that fact. My googling turned that up last night.) Laverne and Shirley were working in a diner, with Laverne as the cook, and Shirley as the lone waitress. Rather than call for Shirley when an order is ready, Laverne thinks the name Betty is more dinery and calls, "Betty, please" into the microphone above the grill. It's so silly and hysterically funny. Another great quote from Laverne, after she pours way too much pancake batter onto the grill and it surrounds the other food that's cooking: "Attention. Attention. Lucky lucky! For the next 10 minutes everything comes with pancakes."

I wish I could have watched my father's face as he watched Laverne and Shirley come back to life on his computer screen. I'd love to hear him laugh and to see his face as he stretches out his face and curls his lips around his teeth to try to stop himself from laughing too hard. My mother gets the giggles. My other sister laughs so hard, she cries. Love when she does that.

So this silly episode of an old sit-com not only brings back the laughter brought on by a funny show, but it wakes up the love I have for my family and all of the snortin' good times we've spent together. I'm a lucky girl.

Now how about some knitting?

I finished 2 more of the MDK ballband dishcloths. Promise I'll stop showing these now. That's all. Unless there's a really good one . . .

Here's the first of my miters for the MDK mitered square blanket. Really simple to knit. The whole blanket looks intimidating, but when I read the pattern, I realized it's pretty easy. Now . . . 79 more miters to go. Ugh.