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.

Blanche: This is horrible. As Big Daddy used to say, "I'm feeling lower than the rent on a burnin' building."
Rose: That's funny. I used to live in a burning building. And it was cheap. It was Charlie's and my first house. Well, scoff if you must, but it was warm and toasty. I'll never forget Charlie throwing me over his shoulder and dashing across the threshold. Oh, it was a beautiful place. Three bedrooms, two baths. Then two bedrooms and one bath. Eventually, we outgrew the place.

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.

Dorothy: I am so excited. I can't believe I'm going to see Trudy again after all these years.
Rose: Oh, I'm excited for you, too, Dorothy. That's why I want everything perfect. I'm making Scandinavia's oldest and most traditional appetizer treat: cheese and crackers.
Blanche: Cheese and crackers, Rose? Not eggs gafloofen? Ham and gunterhoggins? Pigs in a svenkabluden?
Rose: No, but you sure know how to make a girl's mouth water.

Rose: Oh, good, you're home for the Festival of the Dancing Virgins. The sauce is almost ready.
Dorothy: I'm not staying for dinner tonight. There's a meeting at Mensa. That's the organization for people with high IQs like mine.
Rose: You know, in St. Olaf we had a chapter of Mensa, and across the room was Girlsa. No, wait, those were the bathrooms at St. Olaf's only Italian restaurant.

Rose: Therapy's a wonderful idea. Oh, I remember St. Olaf's most famous psychotherapists, the Freud brothers, Sigmund and Roy. You may have read their bestseller, "If I Have All the Cheese I Want, Why Am I Still Unhappy?"

Blanche: Oh, I'm calling the exterminator!
Rose: Oh, no, don't! A mouse saved my life once. His name was Larry. Larry the mouse. Oh, I loved Larry. He used to walk to school with me every day on a little leash I made out of kite string. Well, one day, we were about to cross the bridge down near the schoolhouse, and Larry stopped dead in his tracks. No matter how I yanked on that leash, he just wouldn't move. Suddenly, I heard this loud noise. The dam upstream had broken, and this rush of water swept the bridge away. Larry saved my life. If it weren't for a mouse just like that little one in the kitchen, I wouldn't be sitting here today, telling you this story.
Dorothy & Sophia: Call the exterminator!

Rose: I remember the best sex of my whole life.
Dorothy: Was it difficult to get out of the relationship afterwards?
Rose: No, not really. Poor Charlie died in the middle of it.
Blanche: Was that really the best sex you ever had with him?
Rose: Yeah. Oh, there was something wild about him that night. Although I did think it was strange when he started yelling, "Rose, I'm going! I'm going!"
Dorothy: Talk about your mixed emotions.

Rose: The hardest part for me was explaining to my Kirsten the difference between boys and girls. I knew the time had come, but I kept putting it off. Finally, I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.
Blanche: So you told her?
Rose: No, I took the bull by the horns, turned him around and showed her what makes a bull a bull.
Dorothy: You are kidding, Rose?
Rose: No! That's how my mother taught me.
Blanche: Honey, didn't that give you a false impression about what a man would look like?
Rose: It sure did. Can you imagine my surprise on my wedding night with Charlie? [laughing] Boy, that bull would have been jealous.

Rose: I sure miss a traditional St. Olaf Christmas.
Dorothy: Excuse me, Rose, do we have time to run out and get hit by a bus?
Rose: First there'd be the Christmas pageant, with the shepherds and the angels and the two wise men.
Blanche: There were three wise men, Rose.
Rose: Not in St. Olaf. Then we'd all go down to the town square and try to form a circle. And then we'd all go home and smoke kippers.
Blanche: Why, Rose?
Rose: Because it's the best way to get your house to smell like kippers. And then in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, it was traditional to let all the animals sleep inside that night. And then, the next morning, the rumors would start. And they'd continue until New Year's, and we'd all make resolutions that it would never happen again. But then, the next year, all it took was a little eggnog and one wise guy saying, "What the hell! It's Christmas."