Get Crackin'

I can’t remember if it was Monday night or Tuesday morning, but on one of those two occasions, I was taking Katie out to use the bathroom. As I was walking out the door, I either heard something, or said something, or had some train of thought that reminded me of a phrase from a Golden Girls episode. (I think, actually, that I was saying something to Hailey, and whatever I was saying sparked the memory...so it must have been Monday night.)

The episode in question has a side plot where Rose has borrowed Blanche’s earrings, and Blanche now can’t find them, so Rose believes she must have lost the earrings. To make it up to her, Rose offers to be her “Wiedenfloeggen” (which, of course, is a made-up Scandinavian word), which is basically where you become someone’s slave in order to pay them back for something you’ve done wrong. Throughout the episode, Rose is waiting on Blanche hand and foot, and Blanche is generally taking advantage of it, asking Rose to wash her car and make her meals and organize her closet, etc., etc.

Near the end of the episode, a man comes to the house, returning Blanche’s earrings and watch, which he found between the cushions of his couch. Turns out, Blanche had lost them there when they had been on a date. Rose is naturally upset, not only because Blanche had lost her own earrings, but particularly because the watch was Rose's, not Blanche’s, and Rose hadn’t even known Blanche had borrowed it. She tells Blanche off, and then Blanche is forced to apologize and butter Rose up to get her to forgive her for treating her like a slave when Rose hadn't actually done anything wrong in the first place. Rose finally gives in and forgives her.

About this time, Dorothy comes in and is really upset because one of her favorite students is being deported back to Mexico. Blanche and Rose console her, and Rose tells her to go lay down, promising to baby her and rub her feet and make cookies for her and basically pamper her for the rest of the day. Dorothy is thankful and leaves to go lie down. Then, as the “final gag” for the episode, Rose, who has up to now been acting motherly and loving toward Dorothy, turns with a stern face to Blanche and says, “You heard her, Blanche. Get crackin’.” And thus the episode ends on a laugh.

Anyway, to make a long story short (all together now, “Too late”), that final phrase “Get crackin’” is what I randomly thought of as I was walking out the back door to take Katie out. Again, I think it was based on something I was saying to Hailey, and I remember walking out onto the porch thinking the phrase to myself, and thinking about that episode. “Get crackin’.”

Melanie and I used to watch the Golden Girls all the time, as many of you (haha...looky there, I said “many of you,” as if anyone other than possibly my sister is reading this)....anyway....as many of you know, Melanie and I used to watch the Golden Girls all the time. It was on for an hour from 5:00 to 6:00 in the evenings, and then again from 11:00 to 12:00. It was also on from 12:00 to 1:00 in the afternoon. We frequently watched it during dinner and at night before bed. We’ve both seen every episode numerous times. However, in recent years, we haven’t watched it as much, and Lifetime only shows it (to my knowledge) for 30 minutes a day now, usually from 12:00 to 12:30, or 12:30 to 1:00. That happens to correspond with the time I’m usually home at lunch, so sometimes I will watch it while I’m eating. However, I’ve only recently discovered this, and I probably haven’t watched more than 3 or 4 episodes, and I don’t think I’ve seen any of them in their entirety. In fact, I’d say that I probably haven’t seen more than 8 or 9 episodes of the Golden Girls in the last couple of years, and I can’t remember the last time I saw the episode described above. Indeed, the fact that the final phrase from that episode (“Get crackin’”) popped into my head at all is evidence of how the brain manages to hang on to random memories without you evening knowing it, and then later call them up at seemingly unusual and random times.

Anyway. So I have this random memory, on either Monday night or Tuesday morning, of this Golden Girls episode that I haven’t seen or even thought about in years. Then, at lunch on Tuesday, I make myself some soup and sit down at about 12:15, flipping the channel to Lifetime to see if the Golden Girls are on. Sure enough, they’re on. And which episode is it?

You guessed it.