Blanket

I just watched The Producers (the re-make with Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom and Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock) the other day. It was pretty funny. There's a scene that keeps coming back up in my mind: Leo and Max are in Max's apartment, and Leo pulls this piece of blanket out of his pocket and starts rubbing it around his face. "It's not important, it just makes me feel comfortable," he says. But then Max takes the piece of blanket away and Leo freaks out. "MY BLANKET! YOU'VE GOT MY BLANKET! GIVE ME BACK MY BLANKET!" Up until that point he had maintained his composure, even though Max Bialystock clearly made him nervous. But when he lost his blanket, the thin facade of his composure wore through.
I like the idea, because everybody's got their blanket. Some thing or idea that, when rubbed the wrong way or put out of place, causes you to totally lose your cool. It could be something really small, like putting the tea bag in before the water, or stir-frying beef together with green peppers. It could be some past grudge that never faded, of which we do not speak.
Somebody told me once that our society is four skipped meals away from complete chaos. Best not to consider how thin that blanket that covers us all really is.
The Producers, though. Really funny movie, that.