Vulcan death grip

SOOKIE: Too bad you couldn’t get your mom to relinquish Friday night.
LORELAI: No, she has her Vulcan death grip on that one.

In the sci-fi TV series Star Trek, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) would employ a Vulcan nerve pinch to render others unconscious. It seemed to work by pinching a particular pressure point in the neck.

In the episode “The Enterprise Incident”, Spock administered a supposed “Vulcan death grip” to Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to convince some aliens that Kirk had been killed. In fact, Spock had simply used an extremely powerful Vulcan nerve pinch to put him into a state of deep unconsciousness. Unlike the nerve pinch, the “death grip” was administered by a hand over Kirk’s face.

As any Star Trek fan will tell you, there is no such thing as a Vulcan death grip. It is unclear whether Lorelai realises this.