Beulah, peel me a grape.

On its surface, the line is a demand for an absurdly small service—peeling a single grape—making it a compact joke about decadence and entitlement. In Mae West’s delivery (as popularly remembered), the humor also comes from performance: the languid command implies sensuality, appetite, and control, turning a trivial act of eating into a miniature ritual of pleasure. More broadly, it exemplifies West’s signature strategy of using innuendo and exaggerated self-regard to satirize social norms. The line’s afterlife as a catchphrase shows how West’s persona became shorthand for glamorous excess and unapologetic desire.