Team St. Leonard's Memoirs Group No. 4: Merry Mix-Ups

It was a big, big-wig retirement party in a big banquet hall in a big building in Chicago, probably the Merchandise Mart, in the 1950’s. The company my husband Dave worked for was sponsoring the party and all the employees and their spouses were invited. We drove downtown from our suburban house and parked on the roof.

We sat at one of the long tables covered with white tablecloths, next to Dave’s friends, Mike and Al. On the tables were beautiful centerpieces of real flowers, and lots of silverware all carefully arranged beside the plates. Black and white garbed waiters kept our wine and cocktail glasses well filled and refilled..

We all chatted casually. Then we heard the people at the end of our table begin laughing very hard. We craned our necks and saw a frumpy, middle-aged woman, dressed as an old washerwoman in a blue and white striped dress and cap and dirty white apron, working her way down the table, wiping the tablecloth with a gray rag, reaching between people, picking up plates and wiping underneath, and switching a plate with someone else’s, never cracking a smile.

She would polish the back of someone’s chair, go back and pick up a napkin she’d clumsily knocked on the floor, and drape it over the wrong person’s lap. She polished the backs of some of the chairs, sometimes licking her finger to wipe off a spot, then dusted imaginary dandruff off a man’s shoulders. She was serious and businesslike, sometimes clucking her tongue in disapproval as she polished a man’s bald head. There was no end to her antics. When she finished with our table, she went on to another, and we heard laughter at table after table. We were still laughing when our first course arrived. She was a good comedian, our entertainment for the evening.

After dinner, we wandered around talking to Dave’s friends. A band played and some people were dancing and visiting the open bar, where Mike appeared to be hanging out. We didn’t stay long, as we had to get home to our children that we’d left with a baby sitter. Dave mentioned on the way home that Mike was drinking way too much, and he wondered how he would drive himself home.

We didn’t find out until Dave went to work on Monday. His friend Al had helped Mike, who was so drunk he couldn’t walk, out to the rooftop parking lot, and asked, “Which car is yours, Mike? I’ll drive you home in your car because you can’t drive, and stay at your place tonight and leave my car here. Then we can both come back early tomorrow in your car and I’ll get my car.” Mike gazed around at all the cars and pointed unsteadily toward a light blue Chevrolet. Al said, “Okay, where are your keys?” Mike fumbled in his pockets, found the keys and gave them to Al. They drove to Mike’s house and parked on the street in front of his apartment.

The next morning, Al and Mike, sober and very subdued and groggy, were having coffee. Al told Mike what had happened. Mike looked out the window overlooking the street and said, “Where’s my car? I don’t see it anywhere.” Al went to the window and said
“There it is. That light blue Chevy.”

Mike said, “That’s not my car. I have a light green Olds.”

Al was dumfounded. “But your keys worked and I used them to drive us here. How could that happen? I don’t know whose car that is, but we’d better get it back fast, before the owner finds it’s missing and we’re arrested for car theft.” As they drove back, they figured out the key problem. General Motors sometimes made duplicate keys for different models, and that’s why Mike’s key worked in the wrong car.

They hoped they would be in time as they drove back to the Mart, and finally, at the top of the ramp, breathed a sigh of relief when they saw their two cars parked there alone in the big lot, and whoever owned the blue car had apparently not arrived, or had gone for the police. They parked the blue car where it had been the night before and quickly got out..

They were almost to their cars when another car, with two people inside, came up the ramp. The driver pulled up beside the blue car and a nice-looking, well-dressed young woman got out.. As she unlocked the blue car, Al said, “Mike! That’s the old washerwoman! That blue car is hers!”

“Nah,” Mike said. “That’s not her. Too pretty. We’ll just never know.
Let’s go. I need more coffee.”
—Carol Vincent