3-6 “Give and Take”

Every now and then Facts reminds us that Mrs. G is a grown-ass woman and the girls, though wonderful, are young and immature and can be little shits.

To begin this episode, we see Mrs. Garrett speaking sternly to the headmaster about how she does extra work all the time and has never asked for an extra dime in compensation. Go Mrs. G!

Aww, it turns out that she’s just practicing. We’re behind you all the way, Mrs. G.

Blair flits in, interrupting Mrs. Garrett’s run-through. She has been selected to host the art club luncheon and she needs Mrs. Garrett’s help to do…pretty much everything. Jo bursts in with a newspaper. She needs a new tire for her bike and there’s a great sale on at Retread City so she needs a ride to town. Natalie appears demanding feedback on her editorial. Tootie needs Mrs. G to be her draping dummy for a home ec class project. Mrs. Garrett tries to explain that she’s on her way out to meet with Mr. Parker, but the girls don’t hear her. They’re so busy with judging each other about whose problem is the most pressing that they don’t even notice her leaving.

In Mr. Parker’s office, Mrs. G nervously shuffles through her notes and meekly tries to explain why she thinks she deserves a raise. Mr. Parker says he expects her to be “feisty” and he demands that she ask again, feisty this time.

She’s in a position where telling him where he can shove his feist will not help, so she indulges his fantasy, and she’s fabulous. Turns out he was toying with her the whole time. Mr. Parker condescendingly giggles before informing her that she can’t have a raise because the budget has already been made and she got her cost of living raise and she should be happy with that. Her protests are no longer feisty, but “pushy.” Uggggh.

It turns out that this isn’t an academic matter; Mrs. Garrett had been counting on a pension from a company she worked for a long time ago, but she has just learned that the company went bankrupt. Mr. Parker sympathizes but in the end can only smarm, “Hang tough, Edna. You’ll figure out something. You always do.” 

In the cafeteria, Blair flips through a cookbook looking for a recipe for stuffed capons. Heh, cookbooks. In college I once tried to buy a cookbook. I wanted to learn how to cook eggplant. When I got to the bookstore, the cookbook section was closed because Henry Rollins was in it signing autographs. At the time I had no idea who Henry Rollins was, but I was resentful of him for standing between me and an eggplant cookbook. The eggplant and I had to wait. Now, I’ve both fallen in love with Henry Rollins and broken up with him, and I Google recipes instead of buying cookbooks. A lot has changed in 25 years.

The sequence regarding Blair’s utter cluelessness at reading a cookbook is amusing.

Jo suggests that she just pick up some “Kentucky Colonel” for the luncheon. All the girls fret that if Mrs. Garrett doesn’t make it downstairs very soon to help them with dinner, they’re going to get the snot kicked out of them by hungry Eastland girls.

According to the girls, Mrs. Garrett hasn’t been behaving well lately, which is to say that she has responded to their demands in a manner that has been less than nurturing. When she makes it downstairs, having overslept a nap, Tootie and Natalie demand to be taken to the theater to see the new R-rated Brooke Shields movie after dinner. And Tootie can’t find the applesauce. And Blair and Jo are bickering and the roast is burnt because the dumb shits turned off the buzzer but not the oven and Blair feels neglected and Natalie thinks Mrs. G is letting them down but they’re willing to forgive her and finally Mrs. G has had enough.

Initially, Mrs. Garrett’s outburst shocks the girls, as she tells them that she’s not their nursemaid and they need to learn to take care of themselves ’cause she’s not going to do it anymore. She stalks upstairs, leaving the girls to look at each other in disbelief for a moment before convincing themselves that Mrs. G. is either losing it or is gravely ill.

Mrs. G returns downstairs to apologize for losing her cool, but she emphasizes that she meant every word she said. She explains that she has indeed been tired and irritable lately, but it’s because she’s spent the last three nights working as the night manager at a HoJo restaurant on the highway. The girls, still not figuring out that she’s going broke, are incredulous that she’d take a night job. But, she says, she won’t be able to keep up the pace of working two jobs.

Blair: “Let’s face it. You’re just going to have to give up that other job.”
Mrs. G: “Or this one.”

The girls can’t accept that they might lose Mrs. Garrett, and they vow to make her life easier from now on.

The next morning, our four self-absorbed knuckleheads eager-beaver around the kitchen preparing breakfast on their own. When Mrs. Garrett gets downstairs, having overslept, the oatmeal is prepared (and Blair only lost two fingernails in it); the eggs are ready; the grapefruit has been halved and sectioned. Mrs. Garrett doesn’t know what to say.

They’re not tears of joy. As the girls pat themselves on the back for touching Mrs. Garrett so deeply, Mr. Parker enters the kitchen holding Mrs. Garrett’s resignation letter, written on a kiddie menu from Howard Johnson’s. It’s not their best look when the girls whine about all the things they did for her this morning and now they think she’s betraying them.

Mr. Parker tries to capitalize on the girls’ patheticness to goad Mrs. G into staying. Jo’s reaction is on point.

Mrs. Garrett explains that HoJo’s offered her four hundred dollars a month more than Eastland. Although Mr. Parker does point out that Eastland is home, he doesn’t bring Mrs. Garrett’s attention to the fact that that four hundy will be immediately eaten by rent when she moves out of Eastland.

For her part, Mrs. Garrett is more concerned about having to move out when she retires, and having nothing saved. She envisions herself sleeping on a park bench and eating dog food, which the Warners don’t even serve to their dogs. Blair offers that when Mrs. G retires, she can move onto her dad’s ranch in Texas where the cook lives with Blair’s old nanny and a couple of nice ranch hands. This seems like as good a time as any to put my general warning out there to college applicants that if a school wants you to write about diversity, don’t write about how you had a nanny who was a person of color.

Mrs. Garrett is truly touched, but she has always made her own way in life, and she doesn’t want to have to depend on anyone. That converts Jo, similarly independent. One-by-one the girls adjust to the idea that it’s best for Mrs. G, whom they truly do love, to take the other job.

Mr. Parker insists that Mrs. G will not leave. The girls get in his face and tell him to stop giving her a hard time, when he says that he’s going to give the hard time to the board of directors! He’s going to make them give her a raise, and if they don’t, they’ll find his resignation, not written on a kiddie menu, right next to Mrs. G’s.

So, from smarmy creeper to Great White Hero, Mr. Parker promises to go to bat for Mrs. G. They all share a moment of solidarity before Mr. Parker announces his exit to make phone calls. Jo offers him the services of some guys from her neighborhood if anyone on the board gives him a hard time.

And, with new appreciation for Mrs. Garrett, the girls serve her breakfast and value her until the next time they act like little shits.