LISA DENTON: Barry, I know sometimes I have to drop bread crumbs to help you follow my bursts of logic, but I noticed that the Glenn Miller Orchestra is coming to Cleveland on Friday, and it made me think of Archie Bunker. Surely, you can guess why.
BARRY COURTER: “Boy, the way Glenn Miller plaaaayyyyeddd.”
LISA: Exactly. The best part of Edith’s singing was that I always knew I sounded as good as she did on that second verse. Really something special.
BARRY: The Cleveland folks are raising money for arts programs in schools, a worthy cause.
LISA: Speaking of bread crumbs, I dropped something else on my recent, most embarrassing trip to Walgreens ever. I was reminded of my, um, indiscretion when I saw that Yellow Dragon Productions is staging a play by Steve Martin the next two weekends at St. Luke United Methodist Church.
It’s a comedy called “The Underpants,” and it’s about a man with an unusual problem: His wife’s underpants won’t stay on. One Sunday morning, they fall to her ankles right in the middle of town, causing a scandal, as you might imagine. The man, Theo Maske, swears to keep her at home until she can find some less unruly undies.
BARRY: I once worked at a funeral home, as you know, and one of my favorite stories involved an elderly matriarch who exited the hearse and headed toward the church pushing her walker. As she lifted her foot to climb the first step, the elastic on her drawers gave out, and they fell around her ankles.
Without missing a beat, she stepped out of them, hooked them with her shoe, flung them into the bushes and walked into the church. The funeral director telling me the story said it was all he could do to keep from bursting into laughter throughout the service. But you were saying
LISA: Well, first let me say how much I envy the elderly woman’s hook and fling skills. Sounds impressive. My experience wasn’t quite that dramatic. My unruly undies make an appearance as I walked through Walgreens one morning last month. Not the ones I was wearing. They stayed on.
But unbeknownst to me, there was a pair stuck inside my pants, and they took that particular moment to drop out of my pants leg. Keep in mind, I’d been back and forth through the house several times before leaving and even pulled the garbage can down the driveway. But as I walked into the store – in that wide-open, free-of-obstacles, surveillance-camera-sees-all space near the front registers, out they came.
An employee walking past said, “You dropped something.” And I thought, “Couldn’t have been me.” But then I turned around to see and realized, yep, that’s my underwear. On the floor. In Walgreens.
I don’t know how Mrs. Maske solves her problem in “The Underpants,” but I scooped mine up and kept shopping. You know, like it was no big deal. But I couldn’t make eye contact with the clerk when I paid for my pistachios.
BARRY: Imagine what he was going through.
LISA: I’m hoping he thought it was just some weird, rumpled handkerchief.
BARRY: The final two films of this round of movies in the Bobby Stone Film Series are this weekend. They are “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Despicable Me.” And The Pool is doing a Beatles tribute celebrating the 55th anniversary of the band’s Ed Sullivan show debut on Friday at Songbirds.
LISA: I might venture out for those. I seem to do better in dark places.
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Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281. Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.