A little Birdie told me…
Birdie had the kind of face that stopped conversations. Dark hair set just so, red lips, a pearl at each ear, and a smile that made men forget what they were saying mid-sentence. Her husband had married the prettiest girl in the room, and as far as he was concerned, that was everything a man could want.
What nobody told him was that behind the barcode, Birdie was watching everything.
In 1953, a woman's job was to look good, keep the house, and buy what the television told her to buy. But while the men talked around her and through her and past her, Birdie was listening. While her husband watched the game, she was watching the commercials. Not the way you are supposed to watch them, but the way an engineer watches a machine, looking for the gears underneath.
And if any of this sounds familiar, you might just be a Birdie too.