RDP Monday: parlor/parlour

Written for RDP, where segoil asks us
 to get creative with the word “parlour”.
Thanks, Heather! Here’s where the prompt took me.

Show of hands if you remember the terms “beauty parlor”, “funeral parlor” or “pizza parlor”.

I do. In fact, when I was very young, before we moved to The Bronx, we lived in a brownstone in Manhattan with my mother’s family. Except for the rooms upstairs, all the other rooms had pocket doors which slid into the walls and opened up the entire downstairs area. Only the kitchen had a door which swung open and closed. We had a front room which we referred to as the “parlor”; that was the room where my great-grandmother’s wake was held.

The word “parlor” isn’t used much in the US anymore; these days we have hair and nail “salons”, funeral “homes” and pizza “places”. Sometimes I slip up and say “beauty parlor”, and my 17-year-old granddaughter looks at me like I’m from Mars.

I miss those “parlor” days; there was a certain refinement, a gentility to our vocabulary. Some things just shouldn’t be messed with, you know?

NAR©2026

This is “Mary Ann” by Beauty Parlor

RDP Monday: PARLOUR

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