LORELAI: Oh, no, it’s kind of slow here. So slow, in fact, that Michel and I were about to get the tetherball out.
Tetherball is a playground game where two players use their hands to hit a volleyball tethered to a metal pole by a rope. The game ends when one player manages to wind the ball all the way around the pole so that it is stopped by the rope. It must not bounce. An early variation was described in 1909, and the game was especially popular in the 1970s.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 