“Hello?”

“Hi Grandma, it’s Melissa.”

“What?”

“It’s Melissa!”

“Who?”

“MELISSA!”

“Oh, hello.”

“How is everything? How are you feeling?”

“Well, I have that leg thing, and there’s the stomach thing, and some asthma recently and my eyes haven’t been too good. But I’m still kicking.”

“You sound in pretty good spirits. How have they been treating you down there?”

“The food here is dreadful.”

“It didn’t seem all that bad the times I ate with you.”

“You try eating it every day.”

“Good point. I heard a neighbor of yours just passed away.”

“What?”

“Your upstairs neighbor, Betty Friedan, I read that she died a few days ago.”

“Oh, right. Yes she was in a room a few floors upstairs from mine.”

“And you knew her, right? I remember you mentioned meeting her in the hallways.”

“Yeah I knew her. Nasty old bird.”

“Really?”

“She was a mean old woman. Very bitter. Never talked to anyone, just sat there with her cane.”

“You know she was one of the founding leaders of the feminist movement.”

“Yes, I know. She walks with a stoop and growls at people if they’re in her way.”

“She was once fired from her job because she told her boss she was pregnant.”

“My friend down the hall told me Betty had an altercation with this man in a walker, he was trying to come out of the elevator and she was trying to go in. She smacked his walker with her cane, my friend said.”

“She was the first leader of the National Organization for Women.”

“Smacked him with her cane, can you imagine. Such a nasty thing to do.”

“She wrote ‘The Feminine Mystique!’”

“Really no need to be so bitter. Her health was failing, I know that, but so bitter.”

“Grandma, maybe she was bitter because she dedicated her life to the feminist movement and fifty years later the ‘New York Times’ is still running stories about how women allegedly go to Yale intending to become housewives. Maybe she’s bitter because the women who do stay in the workforce passive aggressively undermine each other on a massive scale. Maybe she’s bitter that male bosses still say things like ‘Why don’t you bring those fine little legs down the hall to my office’ and get away with it because a plaintiff’s attorney can’t prove that mentioning legs constitutes a hostile work environment. Maybe she’s bitter because despite our years of education and enlightened upbringing, women my age still openly judge each other based on ring carats, wedding head counts and expensive shoes. If I were her, I’d probably be pretty damn bitter as well.”

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind Grandma. Anyway I heard about her and thought of you and just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh. Well I’m alright, except for the leg thing which has really been bothering me.”

“Take care of your leg, I’m sorry it’s been hurting so much. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ok, goodbye dear.”