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Everyone loves Betty White right now, and she justly deserves all the attention for her great comedic timing and feisty personality. But maybe there's a little something else behind all the adulation. [Click on the image for a larger version of this piece. The text reads: 'One of my petsitting clients is my friend Jennifer, and she has a lot of rescued animals, and I just stayed overnight at her house so she could go visit her mother, and I admit it was a challenge taking care of 3 dogs, 5 cats, 4 horses, 2 macaws, a llama and a geriatric iguana, and when Jennifer got home she complained about having a big fight with her mother over having so many animals and not getting married and having kids, and then she asked how things had been while she was away, and I didn’t want to tell her about the fact that her mother had called and talked to me about why Jennifer had so many “pets,” so I just said everything was fine, and then she said, “And my mother kept going on and on about how old she is and how old she feels and how she isn’t getting any younger and neither am I, and my biological clock is running out, and now I feel really old,” and since Jennifer is my age I felt compelled to say, “Oh, come on, you’re not old, and you look great. When I feel old I remind myself that there are people like Bette White, who is wildly popular right now with a hit show and is funny and cool, and she outdid all the other talent on Saturday Night Live, and they say she’s the best thing about Hot in Cleveland, and she’s nearly 90,” and she said, “She just gets all that adulation because she’s going to die soon! And people feel like they have to give her one last present of their love and admiration because she’s not long for this world, and she reminds them of their mother and grandmother and great-grandmother that they’ve disappointed and not been able to please no matter how hard they try,” and she was talking louder and louder and in a higher and higher-pitched voice and seemed like she was hyperventilating, and I said, “Take it easy Jennifer. None of us can ever really please our parents, but I’m sure your mother’s very proud of you” and just then her mother called again, and as I walked away with a couple of the dogs to give her some privacy, I heard her say, “No, I don’t expect you to think of an iguana as your grandchild!”']
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