Gilmore Handbook Rule 20
Turning intimidation and disapproval into humor helps Gilmores deal.
Lorelai knew she was right. She walked into her house to find Emily trying to move her couch.
"Hold it right there! Step back and move away from the couch," Lorelai warned.
Emily completely ignored her warnings. "This couch cannot stay," she insisted.
"Yes, it can."
Emily rolled her eyes. "It's awful."
Lorelai feigned offense. "It can hear you."
"Please."
"No."
Emily tried to come up with a solution. "Well, what about the chair? Let me move the chair."
"No, the chair stays also," Lorelai replied, ruining Emily's plan.
Emily was insistent. "Well, we have to do something. I brought flowers over and can't find a decent vase. All I could find was a ceramic Betty Boop head," she said in disgust.
Lorelai tried to calm her mother down. "Mom, you're making yourself crazy."
Emily ignored her daughter's comment. Her brain wheels were turning and Lorelai could practically see the smoke coming from her ears. "I know. We'll get some tarps and throw them over everything and tell her that you're painting!"
"Mom, stop it. What is so horrible about this room?" Lorelai asked.
"Well, look at it," Emily replied condescendingly.
Lorelai grinned. "I am. I like it."
Emily sighed. "Well, you may like it, but your grandmother will not. She's going to take one look around here at the junk store collection of hobo furniture and she's going to blame me."
"For what?" Lorelai asked.
"For letting you live like this. For not teaching you better. For not redecorating while you're out of town."
"Well, we're never out of town," Lorelai replied.
Emily always had an answer. "For not sending you out of town so I could redecorate!"
Lorelai tried to reason with Emily. "Mom, you don't believe that."
"Everything that's wrong in your life is my fault. Everything that's wrong in your father's life is my fault. Basically, everything's that wrong is my fault," Emily raved.
"Mom, would you sit down for a minute?" Lorelai asked.
It was almost instantly after they sat down that Emily had an insulting remark about the couch. "And it's lumpy, perfect," she said sarcastically.
"Mom, if I may, I'd like to give you some advice."
"You would?" Emily asked in disbelief.
Lorelai decided to let out exactly what her plan was. "You need to develop a defense mechanism for dealing with Grandma."
"What are you talking about?"
"You just need a system, a new mindset. Take me, for example," Lorelai explained.
"What about you?"
Lorelai almost wasn't sure how to answer that question. "Well, I know there are many things in my life you don't approve of."
"Like what?" Emily asked.
Lorelai thought of the myriad of things Emily disapproved of in her life, but chose the most obvious one, glaring her in the face at the moment. She decided it was the least offensive subject and began to explain. "Like this couch."
Emily took the bait. "Well, this couch is terrible," she groaned.
"Okay, good – you think the couch is terrible. Now, at one point in my life, you saying a couch that I carefully picked out and had to pay off over eight months is terrible might've hurt my feelings, but not anymore," Lorelai explained.
"No?"
"No."
"Why not?" Emily asked.
"Because one day, I decided that instead of being hurt and upset by your disapproval, I'm gonna be amused. I'm gonna find it funny. I'm even going to take a little bit of pleasure in it," Lorelai replied.
Emily was confused. "You take pleasure in my disapproval?"
Lorelai nodded. "I encourage it sometimes just for a laugh."
"I don't know what to think of that."
"Think, 'hey, that's brilliant', because this idea could set you free," Lorelai insisted.
Emily wasn't too thrilled with the concept at the time, but when she was at dinner with Trix, Richard, and Lorelai, she put the plan in motion.
"I knew I could. Oh, it's time for the next course. Waiter, our next course please," Richard's mother demanded.
Emily interrupted. "I'm not done."
"What do you mean, you're not done? You had twelve minutes."
"I'm not done," Emily repeated.
Emily's mother-in-law consented. "Fine, we will wait."
When Emily slowly began to eat the rest of her meal, reveling in the glory of victory, Lorelai leaned over and whispered, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."
Luke couldn't help but shake his head, holding back laughter at the example. "You got your mother to torment your grandmother?"
Lorelai grinned. "I am a very influential woman, you know," she replied.
"What on earth possessed you to do that?" he asked.
"Well, partially, I needed a laugh, and the Dane Cook CD I got in the Yankee Swap last year is currently MIA," Lorelai explained.
Luke rolled his eyes. As he opened his mouth to ask another question, Rory and April walked through the front door.
"Hey, Dad!" April said, putting her bags down and moving toward the couch to give Luke a hug.
Luke stood up, returning the hug. When April pulled back, Lorelai reached for a belt loop of Luke's jeans and pulled him back down onto the couch. "Jeez, Lorelai, what was that for?"
Lorelai giggled and got up to give April a quick hug. "We're reviewing 'The Gilmore Handbook' with your father, here. We're currently about halfway through the book, on rule 20 of 43, and he's stuck here until he hears every last rule and multiple stories about when they had to be followed," she explained, sitting down next to Luke on the couch.
April's eyes widened. "You guys have a handbook? That's so cool!"
"It is. Would you like to stay and listen to the explanations of said rules? We can start from the beginning," Lorelai said, taunting Luke.
Rory jumped in, coming to Luke's aid. "How about I help April unpack, we get some takeout, since Luke is out of commission, and then we'll come back and listen to the remaining rules? Then I'll fill April in on the rest later."
Lorelai pouted. "You're worse than Oscar. Ooh, you know who you are? You're the Grinch. You're an evil fun-sucker-outter. You fun sucker, you!"
"I'm honored," Rory teased.
"Thank you for saving me from this agony," Luke replied.
April rolled her eyes. "You know, Dad, we all know you're lying, and you actually find this somewhat amusing."
Luke's jaw dropped. "That is not true! This is the most pointless set of rules…"
Lorelai held her hand up. "For that, my friend, you are subjected to another story."
"Lorelai, for the hundredth time, do NOT twirl in your dress. I do not want to see projectile pancakes on the floor!"
Lorelai sat on the couch, fingering the bow on yet another ugly, poofy dress she was forced to wear. She couldn't twirl at six, or seven, or eight, so nine seemed the appropriate age at which to be able to twirl, the threshold of being a young lady. Ladies twirled, didn't they?
She thought about twirling again, just to see if Emily had a sixth sense for the twirl. Maybe she could hear the dress from all the way upstairs. She stood up and began to twirl once more. But Emily must have been gifted with the ability to hear a twirling dress from thousands of miles away, because before she'd finished three whole circles, Lorelai was once again stopped.
"Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, what have I told you about twirling in your dress?"
Lorelai decided to play mind games with her mother. "That it's fun?"
"No."
"That every girl should do it, all the time?"
"No."
Lorelai grinned. "Oh, I know, it was that it makes your dress poof!"
Emily's lips formed a straight line. "There will be no dessert for you tonight, young lady. You will eat your meal, march right upstairs, and go straight to bed, you will do nothing else. Is that understood?"
Lorelai feigned sadness, bowing her head in mock shame, and nodded. When Emily walked away, she pumped her fist in victory, realizing that the "nothing else" included "no homework," if she really wanted to stretch it.
"And that, my friends, was the first time I decided to make Emily Gilmore's disapproval amusing to me," Lorelai recalled.
"And your teachers let you get away with not getting your homework done?" April asked.
Lorelai nodded. "Sure. They were all just as scared of her as the maids were, so when I told them what happened, they insisted I take the night off."
"Wow," April said. "Why were they scared of her?"
Lorelai smiled an all-knowing smile. "In second grade, the maid was supposed to drive me to school. She did, but I was late. So, my teacher made me stay in from recess. My mother was livid. Why, I haven't the slightest idea, because recess was supposed to be fun, and Emily's the Hitler of fun."
April giggled at Lorelai's joke. "So?"
Lorelai cleared her throat, preparing to tell the dramatic side of the story. "Emily comes barging in the classroom, screaming about how incompetent the teacher is not to ask for an excuse, and how a second grader should not be held responsible for being late when she can't drive. Plus, she made sure the teacher knew that I was this terrible child and recess was the only way to allow me to pay attention in class, did she want me to be a terrible student and not get into Princeton and become a lawyer? It would have been all her fault, simply because she made me stay in."
Rory and April couldn't stop laughing. "That's Grandma for you," Rory said, wiping a tear from her eye and trying to catch her breath.
"And 43 rules? Do you know them all?" April asked.
Rory nodded. "We do. Well, Mom forgets sometimes, but I remember them. I think we should let you peruse the Handbook after we're done torturing Luke. Mom?"
Lorelai gave a thumbs-up sign. "Aye, aye, cap'n! We sail on to Rule 21."
Rory smiled. "Rule 21's a good rule!"
April craned her neck. "What's rule 21?"
"I suppose you're staying, then?" Rory asked. "I'll get the takeout, don't worry. Enjoy."
"Rule 21, come on, Lorelai, rule 21!" April pressed.