We Got Us A Pippi Virgin

The "previously" section of this episode is almost the entire last episode.

The only update I have on the wedding is that yesterday someone RSVPed a "Yes" without a name or return address. This sent me searching the internet for zip codes near the zip code stamped on the postmark, to no avail. The zip code is for a sorting station. I'm looking forward to our mystery guest, and hope that said mystery guest isn't actually a family of three.

Dragonfly kitchen. Sookie and Lorelai are trying to figure out how to find hookers to bring in more businessmen without inviting Bill Maher. Lorelai asks Jackson for advice. Jackson -- who is sick and tired of being the Town Selectman -- tells Lorelai to make one of her own damn decisions for a change. He gets a cell-phone call and fields a complaint from a woman whose granddaughter got injured on a playground bouncy piggy and/or ducky. Sookie changes Jackson's tomato-stained shirt during the monologue of quirk. Dean and Lorelai make eye contact, and Dean runs away before Lorelai can ask him to do her any kind of favor. Lorelai then lies to Jackson, telling him to sign a purchase order, which he quickly deduces is that same parking permit form. He gives an "Et tu, former friend?" and leaves. Sookie grabs the form so she can forge Jackson's signature. I just accidentally slammed my hand into a cactus trying to shut my kitchen window. It really hurt. Newsflash: cacti are painful when punched.

Man, there's nothing creepier than an ad for The Polar Express.

Rory and Richard make good on their promise to have lunch at Rory's dorm's cafeteria. Richard is mid-story about a man named Dickie (tee hee), so it's hard (heh) for me to hear through my incessant giggles. The entire story exists for Richard to excuse himself from this Friday's dinner, since he'll be in Chicago with Dickie. Richard begins to complain that he doesn't like to travel as much, but stops himself when he realizes he's doing the babble of the lonely, something I, myself have been doing this week, as I spent much of the past two weeks by myself, alone in this house. In fact, the past two recaps were the most communication I've had with other people, since Stee was out of town and I'm working under a couple of pretty intense deadlines. Rory promises that she's not sick of hearing Richard babble about this and that, and says she's having fun. Their conversation turns to books. Rory is into P.G. Wodehouse, but she hasn't learned how to pronounce it yet. That's okay, Rory. I still haven't figured out which one of the millions I'm supposed to read so that I love it, yet. I apparently picked the wrong one. This also explains all the mentions of "Jeeves" lately. Also, I figure I should add here a sample of the weekly email I get from my friend Allison, always on Wednesday mornings:

Subject: and still: hating Dean

But loving that Rory is going through a 'Wodehouse phase,' which I always knew she would do, someday, if I watched long enough. Despite the fact that she pronounced it wrong -- it's actually pronounced 'Woodhouse' -- I still loved it.

But, the Dean hate rages on in the Huff household. He must be put out to pasture. Of course, Rory is just going to keep hurting me when she goes out with that jerky rich guy at Yale, who is probably a date-rapist. ALSO, Luke and Dean must never again be in a scene together, because it ruins my fantasy that Luke is very tall.

Back to the show. Richard says he just finished the sixth and final volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a task that has taken him thirty-six years to complete. He says he's had more time on his hands lately, without as many nights out as he used to have. He asks Rory if she's still getting together with Emily that night, which means it is Friday, I guess, and Richard's got a plane to catch, like, now. Richard wonders if Emily has gotten the six-month check-up on her car. It's due, and instead of asking Emily himself, he prefers to send his valet to ask her maid. Rory suggests that he ask her himself. Richard says he doesn't want to be an annoyance, and then changes the subject. He says he found the most horrifying thing on television the other night. And before he can tell us what it is, the scene abruptly ends. I hurt my hand on the cactus closing the kitchen window because I finally figured out how to turn the heat on in this house. It took over an hour. These are the joys of home ownership. I mean, it's just a heating device, and shouldn't be difficult to figure out ("auto," "on," "heat," "cool," etc.). But there are two plastic levers on top -- one red, one blue. I mistakenly figured blue was for cool and red was for heat. Every time I turned on what I thought was the heat, only cool air would blow out. It is also news to me that we have air conditioning, since we were told we didn't, and just finished suffering through the summer months. Anyway, it turns out the red and the blue have to be moved together, creating a window of temperature that the house will heat or cool itself to. All I know is that I turned on the heat about half an hour ago and it hasn't shut itself off yet, so I'm thinking the window theory might have to be...thrown out the window...once my hand heals from hurting it closing the window.

Luke's. Lorelai says she's there for coffee and a gander at her boyfriend. Luke tells her not to pay for the coffee, adding that if she insists, she can't tip him. Lorelai offers to tip him later, and then gives a wink that looks more like she lost a contact. He informs her that it's customary not to tip the proprietor. Lorelai scoffs about how she's been tipping him all these years, and that he owes her a lifetime of 20% back. Luke corrects her, pointing out that she rarely tips 20%, and will sometimes dip lower than 15% if she's mad at him. Lorelai gives a tangential "Hey, Keith" to the Asian server so that we all can start referring to him by the correct name. But I think the man playing Cesar wasn't always the man playing Cesar. Time to bust out my Season 1 DVD. Today is the perfect weather to do so, if I didn't have this recap to finish. You see, I hurt my hand on the kitchen window because I had to close it once I figured out how to turn on the heat, which I had to do because it's really quite cold outside today due to the three constant days of rain we've had in Los Angeles. I don't actually remember ever seeing this much nonstop rain. I am so happy to see it, and I truly appreciate how Los Angeles understands that rain doesn't have to come with all that scary thunder and lightning, like big-dick Texas has to do, showing off every time there's a little precipitation. "Check out my tornado warning, bitches! Yee-HAW! Evil green skies and arm-thick bolts of lightnin', touchin' down just outside your front door because Texas is flat as far as the eye can see! Yeeeee-HA!" California's more like, "Dude. It's so raining for, like, ever. I think I'll make some soup to celebrate the earth's desire to cleanse itself of toxins and impurities."

Lorelai and Dean have an awkward run-in outside Luke's. Dean's on his way to his first job, having picked up some extra work at the second job. Lorelai says she saw him at the inn but that he looked so busy (and by that she means he totally ignored her), and he says she looked busy, too. Lorelai asks how "our girl" is doing. "Rory?" Dean asks, because it is a really weird question for Lorelai to ask, since she sees seven times more Rory than Dean does. Dean says he saw her three days ago ("or a couple days ago," he corrects, for those of us keeping the Stars Hollow timeline), but she seemed fine back then. Wow, their relationship is smoking HOT! Lorelai says she talked to Rory this morning: "So...I win!" They flash blindingly white smiles at each other and again I know that they're more attracted to each other than Dean is to Rory or Lorelai is to Luke. Just make out, already. Give us something! Anything! Lorelai tells Dean to come by the time he's at the inn, so they can have coffee and chew the fat, even though that sounds disgusting. They both leave the conversation as soon as they can. The only thing that's a bit frustrating about the amount of rain we've had is that I can't mow the lawn. I couldn't mow the lawn over the past two weeks when Stee was out of town because it's impossible for one person to lift the mower up the stairs to mow the back lawn. Also there are stairs coming up the front lawn. This means the lawn is now two weeks overdue for a mowing, and looks like a mess. We're also going out of town starting tomorrow, leaving our home to a houseguest, and it's not like he'd be expected to mow the lawn. This means the lawn will have one month's and a monsoon's worth of growth, ensuring we'll come home to the white trash lawn filled with weeds and toads. Welcome to the all homeowner-griping edition of recapping.

Emily tells Sarah that she'll answer the door. It's Lorelai, apologizing for being late. She stops her rehearsed excuse when she sees a large, white box in Emily's living room. Gosh, Emily's house is dark. It's a panic room. "Like Jodie Foster?" Lorelai asks, much to the confusion of Emily. It's so small. Emily says it's for one person, maybe two. "It's primarily for me," Emily says. The panic room was supposed to go upstairs, as panic rooms should, but the movers didn't know there were going to be stairs, so they left the large refrigerator-like object at the bottom of Emily's staircase, pretty much in the foyer. Lorelai asks if they can test it out. "I'm gonna get you!" she says to Emily, wiggling her fingers in her mother's face. "You better get in there because I'm menacing! Aaagh!" Emily says there's nothing funny about it. The doorbell rings and Lorelai gasps. "Get in there! Quick! Quick!"

Emily opens the door for Rory, who immediately sees the panic room. "Hey, what's that?" Lorelai poses in front of the panic room like a game-show hostess: "I know how to protect you from shrapnel and Agent Orange! Ask me how!" Emily tells Rory it's a panic room. "Like Jodie Foster?" she asks. Emily doesn't see how Jodie Foster has to do with all of this. Lorelai tells Rory to get one for her dorm room. Emily says it's not a bad idea, since the panic room will stop a .9 mm shell. "Mmm," Lorelai says. "Handy for when Suge Knight comes for tea." Emily says it's time for drinks, and tells them to forget about the panic room. She takes their drink orders, but the cart Richard has left her with has no booze at all. Even their minister had to go without his whiskey sour the other night. She has vermouth, but no gin. Emily tells Sarah to check everywhere for gin. "Including the bathtub," Lorelai adds. Emily says the main reason she bought the panic room was that she's a woman living alone. Lorelai points out that she wasn't the one to bring up the panic room. Emily says she's never lived alone. She went from her parents' house to college to Richard. Rory says that Richard's just in the poolhouse, so she's really not alone. Emily thinks that he might as well be a million miles away: "I don't even know if your grandfather would look up from his stamp collection if he heard me scream." Rory says that's not true, but Lorelai says it could happen if Richard had his nose stuck to a stamp. Emily says Richard barely remembered to tell her he was leaving on a business trip. Rory says that telling her at all meant that he wanted to tell her, and that she's not an afterthought to him: "That's a thought. A very thoughtful thought." Sarah can't find gin anywhere, and offers to check the bathtub. Emily scolds Lorelai for joking with the maids and tells Sarah to try Richard's study. Rory says her mother doesn't need a drink anyway. Sarah comes back, flustered that Richard's door is locked. Emily is incensed that her husband locked his study: "I'm not going to let Richard's business trip keep you from having the drink you want." She grabs a set of spare keys and heads to the poolhouse, Lorelai and Rory in tow. Ooh, my soup is ready. Rainy days make recapping a very difficult chore. I'd much rather read a book.

And because of that last sentence, I stopped recapping for the day. This means that right now I'm recapping on a plane. On a plane! I'm in the air, way up high, using all the modern technologies offered to one young recapper. I probably wouldn't have told you that I'm recapping on a plane because it makes you have to figure out how I'm able to put an episode of Gilmore Girls on my iBook, but I have to tell you the craziest thing: Marty is on my plane. I'm sitting a few rows away from Naked Guy, and I wasn't even slightly discreet about it when I saw him standing in front of me at the gate. "That's Marty from Gilmore Girls, I said to Stee, because I'm a geek. Then, while he was looking at me I just kept babbling. "He also works with ___ at ___!" Stee: "And you just creeped him out so much he walked away." It's true. He kind of avoided being near us for the rest of the time we waited to board. I'm normally really good around famous people, but the people from this show always throw me off. Anyway, Marty, I'm really sorry I outed you at Gate 71B. Can you imagine how weird it'd be if I were recapping the other week's show on the plane, and then he was sitting to us and I was recapping him while he sat to me? Anyway, I'm on a plane!

Emily can't believe Richard lives in such "squalor." She complains about the smell of cigars, and how it smells of debauchery. Lorelai says that Richard and his valet have this whole Auto Focus thing going on. Rory points out the location of the booze, and prods her to hurry up and vamoose. Lorelai says that Emily has the vamoose; it's the gin she needs. Lorelai says, "But you know..." instead of, "Ba-dum-bum." Emily wonders why Richard would have five packs of breath mints. Lorelai opines Richard is on a Gorgonzola and onion diet. As Emily recognizes new books in Richard's collection, Lorelai pouts that her Petunia Pig plate and spoon are hidden here with the castoffs. I have a Donald Duck spoon that met a similar fate in my mom's kitchen. Emily tells Lorelai to take the plate and spoon home, and that Richard won't miss it. Lorelai asks for a canvas bag with a dollar sign on it to take her booty home. Rory heads for the booze again. "Oh, and I think that I spot gin. It's brown, right?" Lorelai: "I love that you think that." Emily snoops through Richard's closet. Rory complains that she just spilled a ton of Scotch on her skirt. "Who's not closing these bottles?" Don't try to figure out why that just happened. Rory's not going to get arrested for drunk driving, and there's no stain on her skirt that we can see. Maybe in a future episode that line will be addressed. But for now, we can forget it. Lorelai asks her mother if she's looking for skeletons in Richard's closet. Emily gasps at something she's found. Rory says she's got the gin and she's ready for the snooping to end. Emily finds a flashy vest in Richard's closet: "It's a vest! It's got glitter! It's a glitter vest!" Technically, it has sequins, but whatever. Lorelai and Rory tell Emily to chill on the vest, and that there are lots of places Richard would need one. Emily asks Lorelai to name one. "Okay, I'm at a loss," Lorelai admits. She suggests that this vest might be like the Petunia Pig spoon, a relic from the bygone days. Emily says that Richard's days of yore never included "dressing up like that gay fellow whose tiger tried to eat him." She's never seen this vest before, and declares it to be a "party vest." Rory worries that they aren't going to cover their tracks correctly, and that they've moved too much stuff around. "How dare he have a vest like that!" Emily scowls. Rory moves everything back to where it belongs as Lorelai pushes her mother out the door.

Luke's. The post-dinner dinner. Rory can't believe how obsessed Emily was about the vest. Lorelai: "Not since I wore my 'Gas, Grass Or Ass, No One Rides For Free' t-shirt to the Junior League Spring Tea." Luke drops off ice cream, pie, cake, and half a grapefruit. Rory whines that she doesn't want any grapefruit. Luke says it's too late for Lorelai, but that he can make Rory eat it. Lorelai says the service is very rude, and now she won't tip him. She tells Rory that they shouldn't have been tipping him all this time. Rory knows that it's customary not to tip the proprietor of an establishment, but she reminds Lorelai that they like Luke, which is why they keep giving him money. That and he gives them free things, like half a grapefruit. The clock inside Luke's says it's 9:30. The clock door at the Soda Shoppe says it's 8. Lorelai says that the grapefruit will be eaten if Luke brings them some coffee. Luke leaves for coffee, and Lorelai asks how long her nose has become.

Rory says she's going to stop by Dean's new place because it's early. He's sleeping on his friend Kyle's couch. It's just temporary. Don't let Kyle's parents know he's sleeping over. Lorelai says they could call Dean and have him meet them at Luke's. Rory seems excited at this notion, which is bizarre, since most people don't want to hang out with their parents right after they first start sleeping together, but Rory's really dating her mother. She says she knows it's been weird between Lorelai and Dean since they got back together. Lorelai argues that she and Dean just saw each other earlier today and had a grand old time. Rory says Dean told her it was weird. Lorelai says it was only weird on his side, then, because it wasn't weird on her end. "Im-hmm," says Rory. Lorelai, unbelievably, suggests tagging along with Rory to Kyle's. "He's back from the Navy! Right? We could all hang out, and hear stories. He could teach us some sea chanteys." Lorelai needs a playdate with some people from her own age group. She says she'll tell Dean how not-weird everything is. Rory says that'd be weird, too. Lorelai says she likes it better how it was before, when they'd get together and hang out and have fun and not be married or have sex. Lorelai says they had a great rhythm. Ew. "He has a great heart. I don't want it to be weird." He actually has the kind of heart they write songs about. He has a cheatin' heart. Lorelai: "Well, then, what about tomorrow night? Let's all hook up then." Oh, man, this whole thing is so desperate. And moms don't say "hook up" to their daughters in reference to their boyfriends. This isn't how moms and daughters talk to each other, and it's not how Lorelai and Rory talk to each other. Lorelai would confront Rory about this, or at least Rory would make Lorelai talk about it. It makes their relationship seem fake, and their love lives are already so frigid and fake, and is WHOA. Someone just sprayed half a bottle of perfume on me. Thanks a fucking lot, 22B. Good Christ, it feels like I drank a Sephora. Ugh. Man. There are hundreds of us on this plane, lady! Have some respect for other people. Who do you think you are -- Lorelai? Gah. It's everywhere, and I don't have my inhaler on me. Man. Grr. I smell like skank. Oh, and now her boyfriend just leaned his chair back as far as he can, and he's leaning into it, trying to get it to go back even further. Now I'm angled like a parenthesis, trying to see the screen, blasting the overhead air to try to create a steady stream of oxygen that doesn't taste like Jean Nat, and the douche in front of me is trying to rest his head in my lap. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Dan Kwa for recapping Lost so that I'm not watching a plane crash over and over again right now. Man. I'm still covered in perfume. I'm so mad about it. I hope she reads this recap. Lady: don't spray perfume in public. Some of us are allergic to you.

Back to other inappropriate women: Lorelai has the horrible idea of a double date. Luke doesn't know at first that there will be a man taller than he in attendance, so he agrees to go out with the two Lorelais. When he finds out there's a fourth, he's all, "Dean?" But it's too late, and Rory's off for a booty call, empty-handed. No purse?