If you are currently in the middle of your businesswoman lunch special, you might have come across the news that Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week. The cult classic starred Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as two ditzy yet well meaning friends who embark on a quest to redeem themselves in the eyes of their high school peers. (It probably doesn’t hurt that Janeane Garofalo, Justin Theroux, Alan Cumming, and Camryn Manheim were also in the cast). Though they procure the right accessories to appear to be successful businesswomen, Romy and Michele draw a blank when it comes picking an industry to be so super successful in, and end up blurting out that they came up with Post-It notes.
Turns out the glory stealing went over well with the real inventor of the ever-present office supply, scientist Art Fry, who spoke with Vice about Romy and Michele’s fake claim to fame. Fry says he’s seen David Mirkin’s film “several times” and “really enjoyed it,” even when he hears Michele (Kudrow) spit out a fake “recipe” for Post-Its adhesive. That’s because he’s the one who wrote that gibberish. And when the opportunity arose for an “apology” from Sorvino, Fry waved it off, because it was, after all, just a movie. But he remains very much invested in his product, telling Vice that he is surprised by how the little slips of paper “unlock the creativity of so many people.” Fry notes their use in cars, office buildings, and, most touchingly, by “elderly folks [who] have told me that they can still function as wives, mothers, and grandmothers because they use little notes to remind them as their own short-term memory fails them.” Please, don’t cry into your cheeseburgers and Diet Cokes.