Off My Rocker

Foot in mouth syndrome isn’t one I have too much difficulty avoiding; but when it comes to trying to pick things to pass along to people I think they might find interesting, that’s another story.  Case in point my recent television show recommendation to my in-laws.

My husband and I enjoy a good comedy show and when we watched the first couple of episodes of 90-year-old Betty’s White’s show, Off Their Rockers, I thought I’d found some common ground with my husband’s parents; it's a show about senior citizens “punking” young people.  It’s hilarious!  Just as a new episode was starting, I quickly got on the phone and when my mother-in-law answered I said, “Quick, turn on NBC and watch.  You’ll love it!” 

I forgot, however, just how raunchy Betty White has gotten in older years; I should have recalled her Saturday Night Live “Muffin” skit (hysterically funny, but full of innuendo).

Scene one of her television episode made me a bit uncomfortable as an older woman sitting next to two young guys pretended to be on the phone with a friend and describing the “hot night she just had getting it on with a paramour," but the next scenes were innocent enough.  Then, Betty is on camera working a crossword puzzle.  “What’s a four-letter word for something that goes on a pole?”  Instead of “flag” she writes “slut.” 

Oops.  I could just see my elderly, conservative, very religious mother and father in-law and frankly, I’m glad I wasn’t in their presence.

That would have been as bad as the time when they came to visit us and I got a couple of movies for us to watch.  Al Pacino’s Scent of a Woman had just come out on video. 

The scene where he describes his passion for a woman’s scent and he was NOT referring to her perfume got me out of my chair and hitting the STOP button faster than I’d ever moved in my life. 

Yep, I think I’m on the bad daughter-in-law list again.  I hope they “forgetaboutit” until I see them again.

Thanks, Betty.