Laundered Fun.

You had to hand it to old Gladys for originality. Her tea parties were always a gas. There was the “President’s Day” theme tea party, which involved a rousing chorus of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too and gorging themselves White House Cherry ice cream. There was the time she baked bracelet charms into all the petit fours (Margaret found this out the hard way after a trip to the dentist).  But the craziest gathering was Gladys’s Washing Machine party, a tour-de-force whereupon the guest of honor was her trusty old Maytag, and the “girls” all sat around it, pretending to have a conversation with it as lively as the one Gladys seemed to be having.

Soon after, Gladys was sent to the sanitarium to recuperate.