I find that I can really relate well to Shirley Feeney because she is the more innocent and naïve of the two girls. Shirley is always positive, and I find that am I also quite positive, although I don't break into a chorus of "High Hopes" as Shirley sometimes does. We are also alike in the way that Shirley has a stuffed cat "BooBooKitty" that she hangs onto for comfort and, although I don't usually go to them for the comfort, I do still have a number of stuffed animals from when I was little.

Shirley is also a very giving and loving person. For example, in one episode, the girls were trying to think of a way to help a man who didn't speak any English and only knew German get a job after losing his first job. Shirley decided to give him some money to help him get on his feet. Unfortunately, he didn't take the money because he was a proud man. I have found that I would have tried giving him charity also, although, helping him find a job and giving him some money to get him back on his feet would have been more helpful.

Shirley is also quite naïve during the first season of the show, but as the show developed, she became more aware of the types of things she should watch out for. For example, in one episode, Shirley was promoted to a beer taste tester and her boss decided that she would work overtime, in hopes that he could have his way with her. Laverne finds out what her boss had in mind and gets Shirley's boyfriend, Carmine Ragusa, to threaten her boss so that he won't try to get fresh again. In the end, Shirley learns that she can't trust everyone, even if she received a raise and a better job from someone.

Shirley also has an overly sensitive side that is connected with her being naïve. In a third season episode, she needed to have her appendix removed, but was too afraid because she thought she would become bald--something that had apparently happened to a relative. While in the hospital, she jumps off the operating table and makes a run for it, right back to her room where Squiggy was left to watch for her. He tells her about the eighteen months when he had pneumonia, but didn't go to the hospital. Shirley tells him that is an awful story and realizes that feeling well again is better than taking a risk of going bald so she goes through with the operation. Unfortunately, in the end, her head is wrapped up and she thinks she did end up bald. It seems that Shirley thought that just because a relative went bald for some reason--an operation for wart removal--that the same thing would happen to her. She didn't know of any possible side effects and feared the baldness instead of dying if she didn't have the operation. This plot teaches that one can't jump to a conclusion and that in a life or death situation a petty fear shouldn't stand in the way of living.

When I first viewed this sitcom a year and a half ago, I knew some of the plots, but the way they were dealt with was always a surprise because people probably really deal with situations in the same manner. The plots in Laverne & Shirley episodes were often simple ideas--one episode had Laverne thinking she was pregnant--but were often dealt with in a more humorous way--their neighbors, Lenny and Squiggy, flipped a coin to see which one would ask Laverne to marry him. It turned out that Laverne wasn't pregnant and we saw the caring side of Lenny and Squiggy. That episode was one of the most touching and awe invoking I had ever seen.