"Luke," Mr. Doose said as he walked into the diner, "Your flower garlands are impeccable! I couldn't have done it better myself. Well, I could have but still very good garland hanging."

Luke looked up from the counter and grunted in response.

"Good morning, Lorelai," Mr. Doose said. He sat down next to her at the counter. "Luke," he called, "I'll have a Southwest omelet and a large coffee. You know how I like it."

A thick vein pulsed in Luke's neck. "No, I don't."

"Yes, you do." Mr. Doose turned to Lorelai, "Lorelai tell him."

"Luke, you've been serving this pillar of the community coffee for over two decades. You know how he likes it." Lorelai said with a wiggle of her shoulders.

"No. I don't. How do you want your coffee, Taylor."

"Now Luke, I'm sure if you really tried you can remember the way I take it. Here I'll give you a hint. I take it hot."

"Don't we all, Taylor?" replied Lorelai.

Luke slammed his notepad onto the counter. "You know what? Now you get no coffee. Wash your omelet down with water. One Southwest omelet!" Luke shouted into the kitchen before smacking the bell on the counter.

Mr. Doose gasped. "Luke I would appreciate a cup of coffee and frankly, friendlier service."

"If you want friendly service, try the psych ward at Stars Hollow memorial." Luke filled a to-go cup with coffee and passed it to Lorelai.

"Thank you, Lukey," she replied, pinching his cheek.

"You know how she likes it by heart? Are you playing favorites in a public establishment?"

Lorelai bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. If she were a good woman she would take her coffee and be on her way.

Thank God, she wasn't a good woman.

"Hey, Taylor, how did you say you wanted your omelet?" she asked.

Luke turned to her, furious.

"Thank you for reminding me, Lorelai. I would like it to be hot and firm. Not too firm, of course, because I do enjoy something nice and moist in my mouth–"

"Time for work Lorelai, I'm walking you to your car," Luke said. He tossed his shoulder rag under the counter. "Carlos, watch the store!"

Luke stomped over to the door and held it open for Lorelai. "Let's move!"

"But Luke, my omelet!" Mr. Doose said.

"One more word and I'll take your omelet–"

"Sorry, Taylor we got car walking to do. Let's move!" Lorelai said, dragging Luke outside.

The diner door swung shut behind them and Lorelai finally laughed. Luke watched her, as she was overcome with giggles and sighed, "Are you in 6th grade?"

Lorelai stood up and wiped a tear that leaked out of her eye. "What? You didn't like hearing how Taylor likes it hot and moist and firm?"

Luke cringed, "No thank you," he crossed his arms. "Have you heard from Rory lately?" he asked.

"Heard? No, but we've been texting like the modern women we are."

"Huh. I was talking to her on the phone and told her about how you almost snapped your neck on that nature field trip thing with James the other day and she acted like she heard it for the first time. That happened weeks ago. You didn't tell her?"

"Must have slipped my mind," Lorelai said with a shrug, "We text about the important stuff like blush colors and puppies and dick size."

Luke flinched, "Please don't tell me you're talking about my dick with our daughter."

Lorelai put a hand to her chest, offended, "Luke, I would never. We mostly talk about other dicks, New York dicks. Dicks with MetroCards and man buns."

Shaking his head, Luke sighed before giving Lorelai a kiss, "Have a good day at work."

Lorelai cheerfully waved at him before climbing into the Jeep. It turned out that even though she and Luke had spent a lot of money on therapy, Lorelai was still a lying liar who lied. For what it was worth, her incredibly stupid, over the top, scream-cry fight with her only daughter was the only thing she was lying to her husband about.

Scout's honor.

She knew she should've apologized to Rory by now but Lorelai felt betrayed. What good could her mom have done that Rory would tell her such huge news before telling her? Her mom had been so damn smug about it, too. Lately, her mother had been getting on her last nerves. That wasn't new, but Lorelai guessed that she had conjured up a brand new form of torture and it was working very well.

Lorelai didn't think her mother could carry on with the whole "being nice" thing for more than ten minutes but somehow, she had kept up with it. No matter how obnoxious and loud Lorelai was, her mom was still "nice". Anyone else would think that Emily had changed for good, but Lorelai knew better. This would not be PuddingGate Part II, directed by M. Night Shamalan. Lorelai knew the score. Emily would try to do better but eventually when no one sees it coming, she'd make a comment, they'd have a fight and then the cycle would start all over again. This declaration of "niceness" had Esther written all over it. Esther wouldn't admit, with the whole patient confidentiality thing, but Lorelai found the whole situation 50% hilarious. She couldn't believe that her mother needed a therapist to tell her to be somewhat polite to her only child.

The newly reinstated Friday Night dinners were brutal. Watching Luke and James fall under her mom's spell was super gross. And she had to sit there and pretend to play happy family because if she didn't she would be the one in the wrong. She refused to be caught in that particular trap. James was her beautiful bouncy baby boy and as such, she got why he fell for it. But Luke! She didn't understand how he wasn't hip to Emily's jive by now. Emily only started to tolerate him after she got pregnant with James. Had James turned out to be Jaimie that might not have even happened.

Lorelai parked down the block from the Inn and turned off the car. She smacked her head against the wheel. Maybe she'd call Rory and hash it all out. Pretending it never happened and waiting for Rory to break first was a classic Emily Gilmore move. She was not trying to be a classic Emily Gilmore. She unhooked her seatbelt and rummaged around her purse for a stick of gum when she heard the faint sounds of working men. She looked out of the window and up near the Inn, big moving vans and a crowd of uniformed men were milling around. That was new.

The front lawn was teeming with men hauling flowers, digging up the lawn, and sweating all over the place. Michel was on the porch, apparently supervising.

"Michel," she said stomping over to him, "What did you do?"

"Why do you think I had anything to do with this? These men said that you hired them."

"What?" she replied.

Michel didn't answer, too busy herding the workmen around, "Hey you! Do not put those pots next to each other! I know you can hear me! Don't make me run after you!" Michel bounded down the stairs after the man.

Lorelai dodged a sentient rose bush with two workman legs and looked around the lawn. While all these hairy men looked like they knew what they were doing, Lorelai needed to find the biggest and hairiest man and establish dominance. Or, ask him what the hell was going on. Near the edge of the lawn, where the sidewalk met the grass, a man in a polo shirt was standing by pointing and holding a clipboard.

Bingo.

"Excuse me," Lorelai said as she jogged up to him, "Hi. Lorelai Gilmore, owner and proprietor of this beautiful lawn you are currently desecrating."

"Ed," the man said, pointing to the nametag clipped to his coat.

"Okay, Ed. What are you doing?"

"Landscaping."

Ed was obviously a man of few words.

"I can see that. Why exactly are you doing that here? Are you some kind of landscaping vigilante?"

"No, I'm Ed. You paid in full for this, what's the problem?"

"I did not pay for this."

Ed held up his clipboard and flipped a few pages. He turned it to Lorelai and tapped the page with his pen. "Here, paid in full: Emily Gilmore."

Deja-freaking-Vu.

"My name is Lorelai. I literally just told you that." Lorelai replied snatching the clipboard out of his hands.

It was amazing. In all the years the Firefly Inn existed, Lorelai could count on her hand how many times her mother set foot in it. But somehow, Emily had managed to give Ed the perfect dimensions of her property. She had whipped out her scrapbooking skills and given Ed color swatches, vase preferences, and flower arrangement diagrams. Her mother was Martha Stewert on meth. Lorelai rolled her eyes and gave Ed his clipboard back.

"Uh, if you're not happy, we can rip this all out and take it back."

Lorelai turned around and squinted at the Inn. Damn her mother for being Martha Stewert on meth. The place was already looking better with her stupid flowers and bushes. "Keep going," she replied through gritted teeth. "You already dug up most of the place."

Ed nodded and walked away to do something that had to do with flowers or leaves or whatever. Lorelai shook her head. Her mother always did this! She was revving herself up to start a scathing internal monologue about leopard's never changing their spots or something poetic like that when she paused.

Her mother always did this.

Emily was butting into her life without listening to her, again. The whole leaf turning, 'i'm a nice mommy' now act had been dropped. Lorelai smiled as she walked into the lobby of the Inn. It felt good to be right. The fact that she was right about her mother never changing to repair their relationship was something she would address in therapy later. But right now, she right and that was all that mattered.

And to think Luke looked at her like she was crazy for not jumping for joy when her mother made it through an entire dinner without insulting her. Lorelai tries to make time to hide in her office or the walk-in freezer to call Luke and tell him 'I told you so!' as is her right, but mishaps kept popping up all over the Inn, all day. To make matters worse and to salt her flowery wounds, it was as if Emily had paid every patron in the place to come up and compliment about how beautiful the new flowers were. Lorelai got it, it was a nice lawn, people didn't need to write home about it.

"Hey Lorelai, check it out. We just got a new 5-star review on TripAdvisor," one of the front desk people said from behind the computer, "They said the last star was just because of the beautiful new landscaping."

Oy, with the foliage.

"That's nice Callum," Lorelai muttered before walking into the kitchen.

"Sookie, I need coffee ASAP. Scratch that, I need it faster than ASAP, like yesterday if possible. You know what? Forget it. Crush up some espresso beans so I can snort them."

"Geez, sounds like you been elected head of party-pooping movement," Sookie replied as she put her hands on her hips. "It's a great day! Not one dish has been sent back to the kitchen and when Jackson dropped of the onions today, he thought the flowers at the back porch were so gorgeous that he put a picture of it up on Instagram. You know how he feels about Instagram."

"Ah yes. Farmer Brown thinks that the government is taking our faces to engineer holograms to spread fake news across the world and start World War III."

"You do read links he sends you on Facebook!"

Lorelai only sighed and went to harass the coffee machine. Sookie wiped her hands on her apron and walked over to Lorelai. She took no notice of her sous chefs closing head level cabinets in her way and moving sharp objects out of her line of fire. She arrived in front of Lorelai, unscathed.

"What's wrong?"

Lorelai crossed her arms and looked out the window. She groaned at the sight of those huge fat flowers staring her in the face. She threw her hands up, exasperated. "Are you kidding? There's flowers on the windowsill? What the hell!"

"If you didn't want flowers there, why'd you buy them?"

"I didn't buy anything. My mom did this."

"Emily did this? That's nice of her."

"No it's not."

"It's not?"

"Its-" Lorelai glanced around and found that the kitchen was not so subtly listening to her ranting. She grabbed Sookie's arm. "Let's talk in my office."

When the office door closed behind them, Lorelai unloaded.

"She bought those stupid flowers without telling me. The same way she ordered internet to be installed without asking me, the same way she planned Luke's 50th birthday party without asking me and the same way she picked out my debutant dress without asking me. She never asks anyone what they want. She just throws her money around and dares you to be ungrateful."

"Wow," Sookie replied, "Maybe we cut you off from the coffee today."

"Sookie," Lorelai groaned, "I'm already in therapy. She's in therapy. The next step is either mommy and me lobotomies or walking into traffic."

"Maybe you could try talking to her first. The traffic around here is bad enough."