As told by by Margaret Weigel...
This just can't be true. Can't be. However, my friend Jeanne heard it from a co-worker who swears that the heroine in the story is a friend of hers...
This story takes place in (where else?) San Francisco. A happy, hip, happening woman living in SF has to endure a visit from her mother, a prim and proper matronly sort from somewhere in the Midwest. The mother is in the throes of menopause, apparently very cranky and physically uncomfortable, what with hot flashes and the like, and the daughter, in an effort to help but probably also to get Mom out of the house for awhile, suggests that the mother visit her gynecologist.
Mom is not fond of the idea of visiting a gynecologist in a strange city. But after the daughter assures her that the man is thoughtful, kind, humorous and sweet and implores her to go just to make sure everything is okay, the mother reluctantly assents and makes an appointment.
The morning of the appointment, mother is VERY nervous and in preparation takes a shower AND a bath, deodorant head to toe, FDS vaginal spray, the whole nine yards, and heads to the gynecologist.
So. Mom's in the stirrups, the doctor's mucking about down there, and he looks up, fixes her with a funny smile and says, "Looks like we've got ourselves a PARTY GIRL!!"
Mother is shocked, to say the least. "What... what did you say??!!!"
He grins even wider. "I said, 'Looks like we've got ourselves a PARTY GIRL!'" and this is accompanied by a smirk and a wink. Mom is flabbergasted and doesn't utter another word for the balance of the exam, hastily dresses and runs out while avoiding his glance.
Later that evening, the daughter returns home from work, inquires how the appointment went, and the mother says, "You have a very rude doctor! He called me a party girl!"
"A what?"
"A party girl!" Mom is sniffling now. "Why would he call me that?"
"I don't know, it's very out of character for him..." the daughter puzzles. "There must be some reason. Think back. Did you say anything, maybe?"
"No!" The mother bristles. "I didn't say anything like that!"
"Come on, think back. What did you do before the appointment?"
"Well," the mother sniffs, "I was VERY conscientious with my hygiene. I took a bath AND a shower, I used your deodorant and FDS — I hope you don't mind — and then I got dressed, and..."
"Mom!" the daughter interrupts. "Mom, I don't have any FDS."
The mother is silent. They both head to the bathroom where the mother points out what she mistook for FDS. It wasn't. It was orange glitter hair spray from the previous Halloween.
The moral being: Read the label?
Analysis: As it happens, the first time I ever heard this legend I was in San Francisco, where the variant above told by Margaret Weigel also takes place. It's a universal story, though. People have been telling it all over the world for a good many years.
The glitter spray tale appears to be a descendant of an older legend about Green Stamps, usually told as follows: A woman visits the restroom just before her appointment with a gynecologist. Finding the toilet paper dispenser empty, she uses some Kleenex she happens to have in her purse. Unbeknownst to her, there are some trading stamps wadded up in the tissue and they become stuck to her body. Later, during the exam, the doctor finds them and remarks: "Gosh, I didn't know you gave out Green Stamps!"
File this in the category of sex-related embarrassments — of which the human species seems capable of producing an endless supply.
