Rose Quote #329

Quote from Rose in Whose Face Is This, Anyway?

Rose: Well, you were one of the lucky ones. It doesn't always work out that well. It sure didn't for Olga Fetchik.
Sophia: Just a minute, Rose. [puts on a pair of headphones and plays a tape recorder] Somebody give me a hand signal when she's finished.
Rose: Olga Fetchik was our town beautician. And one of God's most unattractive creations since the aardvark. Anyway, over the years, Olga had been secretly squirreling away money for plastic surgery. Well, one day she left without telling anyone, had the surgery and didn't return for months. Well, nobody could believe their eyes. Olga Fetchik had turned into a stunning beauty. Every man in town wanted her. She ended up marrying St. Olaf's most handsome and eligible bachelor, dance instructor Adolph Step. The two of them moved back to Norway, decided to get into show business, and they became the internationally renowned Scandinavian dance team of Step and Fetchik.
[A long period of silence follows as Dorothy and Blanche stare at Rose in disbelief]
Blanche: Rose, not that I care, but since you've already gone to so much trouble, just how did having plastic surgery ruin Olga's life?
Rose: Oh, it didn't ruin her life, it almost ruined St. Olaf. I mean, after she left, the town didn't have a professional beautician for years. Women started giving each other home perms. Pretty soon, everybody looked like Art Garfunkel. Husbands stopped sleeping with their wives, the population started to go down. Well, the town would have gone under if Oslo's most famous hairstylist, Vidal Sassbogadotter hadn't relocated his shop in St.
Olaf because of our more favorable tax laws. Now, you see why I don't like plastic surgery?
[Dorothy stands up, walks over to Sophia at the kitchen counter and turns the volume way up on her tape recorder]
Sophia: Ow! What did you do that for?
Dorothy: Why should we be the only ones in pain? You were saying, Rose?

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Features in the collection: Tales of St. Olaf.

‘Tales of St. Olaf’

Quote from Rose in Dorothy's New Friend

Rose: I remember when I was a little girl back in St. Olaf. There was this old lady who lived up the street. She never smiled. I mean, she always looked angry. The kids said she'd kill anyone who even stepped on her property. We called her Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper.
Blanche: Yeah, kids can be pretty cruel.
Rose: No. That was her name. Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper. She had it changed legally 'cause everybody called her that anyway.
Blanche: Then how come your name isn't Big Dummy?
Rose: Well, there were already three other people in town with that name. But that's beside the point. One day I got up the courage to go up to Mean Old Lady Higgenlooper and ask her why she always frowned. Well, she had been born with no smiling muscles. I pointed out that a frown is just a smile turned upside down. So from then on, whenever I'd go by, she'd stand on her head and wave.

Quote from Rose in Older and Wiser

Rose: Well, it wasn't unnatural in St. Olaf. We not only took care of our old people, we revered them, honored them, put them on a pedestal. 'Course, that's how we got to be the broken hip capital of the Midwest.

 ‘Whose Face Is This, Anyway?’ Quotes

Quote from Blanche

Rose: Oh, Blanche, how do you feel about performing in front of a video camera?
Blanche: I think it's alright as long as you've already had at least three dates.

Quote from Rose

Rose: Isn't it wonderful how you make lifelong bonds when you join a sorority?
Dorothy: Oh, I never belonged to a sorority. I was blackballed.
Rose: Oh, I think that is so cruel. The Alpha Yams didn't have blackballing. We believed that any girl who wanted to help her community and foster a feeling of sisterhood should be allowed to join.
Dorothy: Very commendable.
Rose: As long as she could castrate a sheep.

Quote from Sophia

Sophia: Blanche is a very vain person and vanity can be a terrible thing. I should know. I used to be vain myself.
Rose: You, Sophia?
Sophia: What? You think I was born with white hair and a butt like Play-Doh? When I was a teenager, I was gorgeous. Eyes as deep and black as ripe olives. Skin as smooth and creamy as fresh butter. Hair flaming red like a rich marinara sauce.
Dorothy: Ma, that's not you, that's your lasagna recipe.
Sophia: Ah, shut up. Anyway, I was the most gorgeous girl in the village and I could have had my pick of the town's most eligible goat farmers. Until Anna Maria Alonso Paladino, known to her friends as Muffin, moved to our village. Suddenly, all the men, who were always fighting over who would get to keep the footprints I left in the mud, were after Muffin. So, I decided...
Dorothy: Wait, just a minute. They would fight over who kept the footprints you left in the mud?
Sophia: It was a poor village, Dorothy. What did you want them to collect, Fabergé eggs? Anyway, I was too vain to be the second-most beautiful girl in the village. So, I went to Muffin and I told her how I felt. That was when I found out that beautiful girl was even more beautiful inside. She offered to move to the neighboring village.
Rose: And you felt guilty 'cause you'd been so vain?
Sophia: Hell, no. I helped her pack. But it all backfired in my face because the next day, all the good-Iooking men followed her. That's how I ended up with your father. Boy, talk about learning a lesson the hard way.