2-6: “Shoplifting”

Joanna Marie Polniaczek is the tough girl with the brain of a genius and the heart of a lion. She was an important role model to me, and, I’ve heard, to other LGBTQ or otherwise gender-nonconforming people.

But it is an unavoidable truth that sister is a criminal.

Her crime spree started in her very first episode where she faked IDs and stole the school van to get to a bar. Although she softens and learns lessons that ultimately lead her to Valedictorian status and a generally erudite life, Jo never really stops her reign of fraud.

Let’s begin with a heternormative throw-away comment and typical Jo/Blair sniping. Jo earns my wrath for the following exchange:

Blair: “Can you carry on a conversation without sounding like Sylvester Stallone?”
Jo: “Better Sylvester Stallone than Miss Piggy.”

Fuck you, Jo, Miss Piggy is awesome. Miss Piggy had as much influence on me growing up as Jo did. They have more in common than Jo realizes. Basically it’s just an attempt at a fat-shaming joke but you just can’t go there with style icon Piggy. She’s the poster child pig for body positivity.

Jo snarks that Blair “wasn’t born, she was withdrawn from a Swiss bank account.” OK, that’s pretty funny. Awesome Natalie agrees:

Tootie scurries down the stairs to report that Mrs. Garrett’s birthday is tomorrow, foreshadowing the gossipy nature that will be on display in three episodes. The girls wonder why Mrs. Garrett didn’t say anything, and Blair snots that “a woman of her age” doesn’t want to talk about birthdays.

Fuck you, Blair. The age-shaming things sucks as much as the fat-shaming thing. Getting older is awesome.

Mrs. Garrett agrees. She comes downstairs and proudly announces that they’re making a birthday cake for dessert the next night because it’s her birthday. Right on, Mrs. G. Look at that pride.

Discussion about whether one should be ashamed of getting older does not include my argument that aging is better than the only available alternative.

We take a little step backwards when Mrs. G credits her weight-loss with her feeling “more alive than ever.” In her autobiography, Charlotte Rae describes the weight loss process with an emphasis on the pursuit of better health. Between the first and second seasons, she hired a nutritionist and trainer who helped her develop healthier habits and attitudes about food and exercise. Had her line been more like her autobiography, that is, “Since I’ve been eating healthier,” or, “Since I’ve been going to the gym with my friend Kathleen,” instead of, “Since I’ve lost all that weight,” it would have been better.

Nevertheless Mrs. G. (and Charlotte Rae) did a lot of work to get healthy, and her girls are proud of her.

Mrs. G. jogs off and the conversation turns back to Mrs. Garrett’s birthday. Natalie suggests that the girls all chip in for a present, and Blair snobbily turns her down because she can get a nice present all by her rich self and she trusts her own taste. That strikes me as a bitchy thing to do, but I can also see many persuasive arguments for the opposite. It seems like the sort of question that gets submitted to an advice column, but minutes of half-assed Googling didn’t turn anything up. Maybe I’ll ask the Social Qs guy in the New York Times.

I’m not sure how, but my search for advice on whether it’s more respectful to chip in more than your share for a gift or to go it alone turned up a very good explanation about how people often misuse “I” when they should use “me.” It is an enjoyable piece, but it does not address the misuse of “myself,” nor does it address the nails-on-a-chalkboard habit of making “I” possessive by turning it into “I’s.”

Blair does offer to simply buy a present and put all of their names on it, which also seems bitchy to me, so I guess poor Blair can’t win. And Jo, of course, wants no part of Blair’s offer, saying that she’ll use “her own money and her own taste” to get Mrs. Garrett’s gift. Tootie and Natalie also decline, with Jo leading the charge for the remaining three to pool their money and get Mrs. G something just as nice as Blair does.

Together, the three girls scrounge together fifteen dollars – not a bad sum for a gift in ’81. Tootie mentions that she overheard Mrs. Garrett talking about wanting a Hawaiian shirt. Heh. I remember the Hawaiian shirt craze. It’s still a thing with Parrotheads. I had them. So did my mother (in abundance).

As Natalie exclaims that she just read that Harrison’s Department Store has a half-price sale putting the shirts at $14.95, she executes an iconic scene that will be in the opening credits for years to come.

Predictably, it all goes wrong, beginning with the stern saleslady who condescends to them about being young and harumphs that the blouse sale is over. Natalie and Tootie protest that the ad they saw was misleading, and my awesome Natalie shows her spots when she inquires:

“Does Ralph Nader mean anything to you?”

I love it when Mindy Cohn has to actively try not to laugh in the early days.

Jo, whose temper gets her into more trouble than is often remembered, decides she has a personal vendetta against the saleslady and the store, in addition to her constant vendetta with Blair. She shouts down Natalie’s idea of finding something cheaper and instead picks a shirt and heads to the dressing room.

As Natalie continues to protest that they can’t afford the shirt, Jo clarifies that the money doesn’t matter, and the store ripped them off by bait-and-switching them, so they have every right to get back at the store.

Natalie and Tootie fret, then sigh with relief when Jo seems to come out of the dressing room without the blouse. Rather than just letting them believe that, which would have been so much easier, she decides to look not suspicious at all by putting one arm around each friend and walking deliberately toward the exit.

The security guard’s intervention is a fake-out. He tells them the entrance they’re heading toward is closed, and the live studio audience applauds as the three girls saunter out the other door.

Back from commercial, Mrs. G opens her gift from Blair, a classic Gucci bag that I, too, coveted then. The purse reigned supreme in the tween/teen years. At my middle school, all the cool girls had these silvery bags and I never knew where they bought them and it devastated me. I tried so hard to keep up with all that shit and in retrospect it’s just SO DUMB. Childhood. Blech. Thank goodness for this show.

After Mrs. G and Blair back-and-forth a little about how expensive Gucci bags are and how rich Blair is, Jo enters with reluctant Natalie and Tootie trailing behind her. Jo disdains the Gucci bag, while Tootie points out that it’s got Mrs. G’s initial all over it, and Blair is rich yada yada.

Mrs. G opens the box and we get our first good look at the horror Jo picked out for Mrs. G.

Turns out I had one kinda like it in high school.

Blair rightly points out that the shirt is fug and encourages Mrs. G to exchange it. The girls protest that they lost the receipt, and please please please don’t take it back [and find out that we ripped it off]. Mrs. Garrett beams that she wouldn’t dream of it. Jo, Natalie, and Tootie head downstairs to start their meal prep duties, leaving Blair alone with Mrs. G.

Mrs. G and Blair dialogue about whether Mrs. G should exchange the blouse. Mrs G. acknowledges that it’s a little too big for her, but she hesitates it back because she doesn’t want to hurt the girls’ feelings. Blair insists that exchanging a gift doesn’t hurt the giver’s feelings, and Mrs. Garrett is happy to hear that, because she’s not really into the style of the Gucci Blair gave her.

And so, off Mrs. G goes to Harrison’s department store, where the creepy saleslady and her security henchman don’t consider that if someone tries to exchange a stolen item, they’re probably not the one who stole it. The security guard approaches Mrs. G and asks her a bunch of questions to try to corner her. Because this is an 80s sit-com, the conversation is just ambiguous enough so that the security guard thinks Mrs. Garrett is guilty, and Mrs. Garrett thinks that he’s hitting on her.

Mrs. G is a hell of a flirt, but the security guard ultimately informs her that she’s under arrest for shoplifting.

Back at the ranch, Jo, Tootie, and Nat are furious with Blair for encouraging Mrs. G to return the blouse, but their reasons (“She could get her heel caught in an escalator!” “Her bus could get hijacked!”) fail to convince Blair (or any other reasonable person). A knock on the door interrupts the girls’ nonsensical flailing.

Mrs. Garrett, A+ troll, strings the girls on with a story about how she went to exchange the blouse…

…but then she decided that the girls had put a lot of thought into it, and she’d keep it instead.

I’m pretty sure that pic of Jo is another opening credit shot.

Mrs. Garrett continues that she didn’t exchange it because “How could I exchange something that you spent your hard-earned money on? Oh, I’m a lucky woman, to know girls like you, so thoughtful, so generous. You’re such good kids. I mean really good!”

As planned and orchestrated by the fabulous Mrs. G, Tootie and Natalie break and confess. Blair is more relieved that they didn’t pay good money for that heinous shirt than she is shocked that they stole it. Lay off of my shirt, Blair.

There’s not much time left in the show, so the lessons have to start rolling. Jo admits that she stole the blouse and says that Natalie and Tootie had nothing to do with it.

Mrs. Garrett incredulously asks how they could do this when they’re already on probation, and insists that they can’t expect her to just bail them out all the time. Jo protests that she didn’t mean to steal it, but then when they got to the store and the sale was over she got mad, and she didn’t want to let Blair upstage them for Mrs. G’s birthday.

That’s the real reason. That gift-envy is a bitch.

Mrs. G: “I don’t need expensive gifts! Just go in my room and look around! If you want to give me a gift, give me a flower. Or a seashell. Or just a simple note!”

Awww.

And now the lesson: Mrs. G exchanged the blouse for one that fits her, and she put it on layaway. Jo will pay it off by working at Harrison’s on weekends from noon to five, and since she’s grounded for the next month, it shouldn’t be a problem. It also shouldn’t be a problem because the shirt was $30 and the minimum wage in New York was $3.10 an hour in 1980, so it should only take one weekend. And for that time, Natalie and Tootie will cover Jo’s chores at home as their punishment for being part of the whole nutty caper.

And by the way, it wasn’t all bad…

Mrs. G has a date with the store security guard tonight!