The Meyer and Green families were close friends. Lucille Green and Rose Meyer talked to each other at least once a day. They played cards, shared meals and went out as couples. There was little doubt that Linda and Myrna, their daughters, would become chums.

I was a year older than Linda, but that didn't stop us from being best friends. We went everywhere together, enjoyed each other’s company, created mischief and played pranks. But of all the trouble we got into, the funniest was the one involving toilet paper.

We were sixteen and fifteen at the time. Linda was recovering from surgery to have her nose bobbed for the second time. It was my fault it dropped. We had been driving in my convertible, and I had an accident. Linda hit her head on the dashboard and her nose fell. OK, it didn't exactly fall off; it sort of sagged to one side, resulting in a subsequent operation.

Since Linda's nose ran continuously, instead of using lots of hankies, she’d had put a roll of toilet paper in her pocketbook and would tear off a sheet as needed. Listening to her blowing her nose was a most annoying experience, but since I was the cause of her discomfort, I kept my opinion to myself.

This one Saturday night we didn’t have a date, so we got our weekly allowance and went to the matinee. In the early ’50s, the only place a girl would be seen at the movies, without a date, was at the matinee in the company of girlfriends. The boys also traveled in groups, and more time was spent ogling the opposite sex than paying attention to the flick. Lowe’s Palace, the movie-house, was packed with teenagers from all over the city. It truly was a palace with towering marble columns, gilt mirrors, fancy artwork, plush carpet, and of course, a fully-stocked snack bar.

Upon entering the darkened theatre, we gave the usher our tickets. The previous movie hadn't ended yet, but we were going to sit down in the back and wait for it to start. Linda and I looked like Mutt and Jeff. She was tall, skinny and awkward, with a frizzy red head, while I was a short, fat butterball, with graceful brunette curls. Neither of us had begun to reach our potential. Together, we were a walking accident looking for a place to happen.

Sure enough, as we walked down the aisle to our seats it did: Linda tripped and her pocketbook slipped open. The roll of toilet paper fell to the aisle. The carpeted aisle was on a slant, and Linda unwisely had given the roll a yank as she yelled, "Come back here!" The disobedient roll started traveling faster and faster. Just at that exact second, the house lights came on and the entire audience was treated to the sight of this gangly redhead chasing a roll of toilet paper while screaming at it every step of the way. Only a teenager could feel the horror I felt as I sat down to watch.

As she ran, she gathered up the paper wads all the way to the stage where it had stopped its journey. Linda turned around and walked defiantly back up the aisle, red faced, her arms full of the unraveled bathroom paper. The audience just howled; they rolled with laughter. They couldn't stop. Poor Linda! She got redder, skinnier and more awkward with each step she took.

Slowly, I slipped out of my seat towards the floor among the candy wrappers, squished popcorn bags and empty paper cups. I began to crawl on my knees towards the exit at end of the aisle.

When Linda reached where I’d been sitting and saw me on the floor sneaking away, she bellowed, "Where do you think you’re going?" Looking over my shoulders I whispered, " I, uh I, I've got to go to the ladies room. I'll be back in a few minutes." Reaching the end of the row, I got up and ran for the safety of the ladies lounge, leaving poor Linda to face the ridicule alone.

Later, when the movie began again and the auditorium was dark, I snuck back to my seat quietly. Linda didn't say one little word to me for the entire movie. Nor did she on the way home. In fact, she didn't talk to me for three weeks. I could hardly blame her. If she had behaved as I had, I don't know how long it would have been before I would have spoken.

****

I remembered Linda when I publicly made as big a fool out of myself in South Carolina many years later. My husband, Winslow, and I owned a shoe store, Elin's Elf, on the square in Pendleton. We kept a pair of pet cockatoos named Popcorn and Golden Girl. They were very tame and loving birds. Because their wings were clipped, they couldn't fly very far. Popcorn loved to ride on Winslow's shoulder as he went about his repair work. One day Popcorn was out of the cage as I was showing him off to our customers. Someone opened the front door and sure enough, that damn bird made a break for freedom and flew out.

Winslow wouldn't take a million dollars for the bird and here it was lunchtime and the parking lot was full of traffic. I took off after the bird at a full gallop. There he was strutting on the concrete between cars, like the king of the hill. And here I came, a big middle-aged woman, cajoling, "Come here, little bird. Please don't get killed, little bird. Come here, sweetie."

I reached the bird and put my hand down for him to climb on and lifted him up so I could grab him by the neck. "Gotcha!" I chortled.

All the onlookers were laughing. One man was so tickled at the sight of a big woman chasing a tiny bird that he was holding onto a car for support, tears coursing down his face. At that moment, I knew exactly how Linda felt in the movie house ages ago. Here I was experiencing the same kind of embarrassment chasing a bird in the parking lot. The old saying is the truth. “What goes around, comes around.” (Even if it takes 50 plus years!)

Feel free to e-mail me at mmyrnamckee@bellsouth.net. I would love to hear from my readers so I could tell your story. Miss Myrna’s column appears every other Saturday.