Just got a phone call from Julie. She had to go out to do lots of errands today, and ended up, via Yelp, in another small town at a dress shop, or a tailor’s. Somesuch place. Coming from the dressing rooms in back, she heard a queeny male voice imperiously ordering the tailor to”take out all those pleats; they make me look old.”

Surely that man is talking about Dockers, she thought.

And then the man started giving orders about what the tailor is to do to the bodice. The tailor, who is an immigrant of some sort, said in heavily accented English, “Yes sir — I mean, ma’am. I’m sorry!”

Then the tailor/clerk comes out to greet Julie, the new customer. He comes out wearing jeans and a sweater, and hands the woman a dress that’s got a black velvet bodice and sleeves, with what Julie calls “a sweetheart neckline outlined with rhinestones,” and a full white satin skirt.

“He kind of looks at me sheepishly, rolls his eyes, laughs, and says, ‘I’m so weird,'” she said. “I said, ‘Well, that’s what makes it fun!”

When the customer left, the immigrant tailor who washed up on the shores of a small Southern town said she was so confused by the gentleman’s request to be called ma’am.

Said Julie, “I just told her, ‘I love Louisiana.'”

UPDATE: I believe that my valve is starting to acclimate itself to its new environment. If only this MacBook Air resembled a Big Chief tablet. Come on, Prytania Theater, let’s have us an iPad app!

(What am I talking about? This:

I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, the shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve.)

UPDATE.2: It has been brought to my attention that St. Francisville has its own version of The Lady Chablis: an entertainer called Ginger Snap, who performs at a restaurant in a haunted house. No website, but she has been featured in a couple of Facebook photos. Your Working Boy is on the case.