by Barbara Poelle
So, like everyone, I am really into Columbo. I mean, unless I have NO idea what I am talking about, I’m confident saying it’s practically as popular today as it was in the 70’s. It’s like Harry Potter with cigars, am I right? I am sure we could sit here and debate between favorite episodes, and how we felt when we discovered his first name. (What’s that? You think it was never said? Well, you would be correct. But some of us are going to go ahead and be smarter than that, and pause the episode when he flashes his badge in season one and read it off of his ID card. BOO-YA! DOUBLE FIST AIR PUMP!) Anyway, I am almost done with every episode, I have ONE LEFT, and I am feeling sad about it. And by sad about it, I mean shuffling around the apartment clutching a bottle of Luksusowa and quietly mewling, “Coluuuumbo” every night.
In the hopes that I will stop donning an oversized, rumpled trench coat and occasionally bursting into our neighbor’s apartment to solve a non-existent crime, Husband (who finds this behavior “distracting” and “unnerving” and “dangerously close to in-patient treatment”) has taken it upon himself to research new series for the Netflix queue with the idea to lure me from my mournful widow’s walk.
But none can promise the squinty befuddlement. None can promise investigations along the dusty culverts of Topanga Canyon, the too-bright lights of Hollywoodland. NONE CAN MAKE ME CHEER WHEN I SAY IN UNISON, “OH, JUST ONE MORE QUESTION…”
AGGGGH! The agony of saying goodbye! It burns like a bunion! (Pause to drink from my flask. And by flask, I mean bottle. And by bottle, I mean ceramic head mold of C. Thomas Howell.)
There was a particular episode, (I am going to say season 3??) it was called Any Old Port in a Storm. Anyway, Donald Pleasence gave a RIVETING performance as the episodic antagonist and when Columbo finally closed the deal, it was an arrest so touching, so original, that a single tear made its way down my effervescent olive complected cheek. (Oh, it is effervescent. Don't you worry about that.) So I scuffled my way out of my Snuggie (yes, I do, the leopard one) and I marched into the home office and got out the good stationary. “Dear Mr. Pleasence,” I began, “in an industry where the 'star' gets the credit, you were a veritable supernova in your performance as Andre Carsini…” It was at that moment that someone we’ll call Golly Moot texted me, “What are you doing?” (I swear, she has this weird sixth sense for when I am doing something aggressively odd) And I proudly texted back I was writing Donald Pleasence a fan letter for his portrayal of Andre Carsini in Columbo Season Three and how excited I was for him to read it and she was like, (and I might be paraphrasing, but I doubt it) “I’m not too sure that he will care seeing as how he has been DEAD for 15 years.”
AND I WAS CRUSHED.
CRUSHED I SAY!
Ugh, did anyone appreciate Donald Pleasence the way they should have in Any Port in a Storm?!?! That will plague me until my own death, I can tell you that.
And this brings us to the point: If you have read something in the last six months that really moved you, that really pulled your vestigial tail, DID YOU WRITE THE AUTHOR???? I bet you didn’t. I bet you were all, “She knows she was awesome. I’ll wait until 15 years after she is dead to cry into a martini while my best friend sends 'hahahah something is wrong with you' over a text before I consider dropping her estate a fan letter”.
I challenge you…Nay. I COMMAND YOU, to write a fan letter, today. Right now. Look up the website of an author you adore and just do it. You never know when someone needs to hear it the most. You never know when YOU need to hear it the most.
And finally, my question to you is, my people, my Scooby Gang …what do you Netflix the girl who has seen every Miss Maple, every Murder She Wrote, and every Sherlock Holmes? (Of COURSE the Jeremy Brett ones, what do you think I am, an animal??!!?) Can you please get me hooked on something else before I am fitted for a glass eye?
(At least I stopped smoking the cigar….)
