Lorelai enters the kitchen of the inn to find the staff in the doldrums. One of the assistants indicates Sookie over on her stool, head down. "Uh oh," Lorelai asks. "Food funk?" The guy says it's a major one. Lorelai asks if they're dealing with a Swiss chard la Polonaise-level funk, like the one from last May, "or the Panna Cotta experiment of aught-five?" The assistant says it's worse than that: "2001 Pigeons la Nioise." Lorelai sighs. "Oh, boy," she says, worried, and gingerly approaches the downtrodden chef. "Sookie?" she says sweetly, but Sookie is too far gone. "You mean 'Sucky,'" she says, brandishing an oyster. She's been working, she says, on the prix fixe menu for Valentine's Day and cannot come up with anything new. Everyone, she says, will be serving oysters. "Lovers love oysters," Lorelai says. "Well, I don't. I love burritos, but people don't want burritos on Valentine's Day." Sookie is transformed: "How do we know unless we give them the option? That's it! I'll serve burritos!" Lorelai shakes her head: "That's flirting with disaster. We could be talking the octopus ice cream disaster of '98!" Sookie sees the reality: "Oh, God. You're right. I'll figure it out. I'm just hitting an oyster wall, here."
Lorelai asks what Sookie and Jackson will be doing for Valentine's Day. Sookie says that Jackson will make a nice meal for her and the kids and that they'll enjoy the holiday together. Sookie asks what Lorelai's plans are, and Lorelai shrugs: "Oh, I'll be here." Sookie is alarmed that Lorelai won't be spending the evening with Luke, but Lorelai says that Luke thinks Valentine's Day is just one of those holidays invented by greeting-card companies trying to get your money. Of course Luke -- whom they have turned into a pseudo-abusive, selfish, arthritic eighty-seven-year-old -- would think that. I'm here to tell you, men who say shit like that are just cheap bitches; how hard is it to buy a five-dollar box of candy and some flowers? Huh? You know what I gave my husband for Valentine's Day? Heart-shaped cheese and chocolate beer. The man wept. Valentine's Day is fun. It's about sweetness, not diamonds. Come on! Have an emotion, for God's sake. Plus, I have news for Luke and all fools like him: every single holiday we celebrate as humans was made up by somebody. ["Eh, I have to agree with Churlish Luke; Valentine's Day is some bullshit." -- Wing Chun] Sookie disputes the greeting-card company clich anyway, saying that Valentine's Day does have historical significance, causing Lorelai to shrug again. "Oh, well, then," she says, "it must have been a greeting-card company in Roman times. You know, the one that came up with Gladiator's Day."
Sookie and Lorelai are interrupted when another staffer comes in to tell Lorelai that there's a Zydeco band to see her. "A what?" Lorelai asks. The guy repeats that it's a Zydeco band. "Did I mishear him twice?" Lorelai asks Sookie, who says that if Lorelai did, she did, too. They go out and find that, yes, Bouzou Barnes and The Cajun Stompers have come for their audition. "Sorry," Lorelai says, "but I'm like a thousand miles behind, here." Bouzou explains that they set this up a while ago. "Bouzou!" Lorelai says. "You're that Bouzou." Sookie: "You know more than one Bouzou?" Lorelai shakes her head. The band was something Lorelai was considering for her wedding, and forgot to cancel. She tries to explain to Bouzou that she doesn't need to hear them play, but he shakes his head: "No, Miss Gilmore, no. It's like this. When the Zydeco band is at the instrument, they must play." Turning to the band, he tells them to launch into "Zydeco Boogaloo." Sookie asks Lorelai when she started liking Zydeco music. Lorelai says she just thought it might be fun and festive; she was also going to audition a Dixieland combo, and Led Zepagain, a Led Zeppelin cover band. ["How timely and not at all opportunistic that Lorelai should consider hiring not one but two bands that play music traditionally associated with New Orleans! Shut up, Palladino." -- Wing Chun] Sookie says that June 3rd is coming up really quick, and Lorelai says that all of this slipped her mind. Bouzou sees Lorelai's worried look and figures she doesn't like the song. He calls for "Early In The Morning," which is exactly the same song. Sookie tells Lorelai to smile, or Bouzou might never leave.