Xerox and Fax

LORELAI: What are you doing?
RORY: Xeroxing … Sherry had some status reports she promised to fax to people by tomorrow but she didn’t bring enough, and so I’ve been trying to find a Xerox machine. I finally conned someone in ICU into letting me use theirs. I haven’t found a fax machine yet, but –

Xerox, previously discussed.

Fax [pictured], short for facsimile, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine, which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy. First in use in 1865, before the invention of the telephone (it used telegraph), fax machines were ubiquitous in offices in the 1980s and 1990s, but have gradually been rendered almost obsolete by email and the internet.

This particular winning anecdote is a complete nonsense – Rory wouldn’t need to make multiple copies of the document in order to fax it to multiple people. The fax machine would only need one document, and she just needs to find one of those. They are commonly used in hospitals, even today.

However, in true overly entitled Gilmore style, Rory has no compunction about going into the intensive care unit to demand use of their Xerox machine. At night! The Emily is strong in this one.

Lorelai Arrives at the Hospital

When Rory phones Lorelai in distress, Lorelai is still eating dinner with Emily, as if it’s 7.30-8 pm. Impossible! It must have been around 10 pm by then. Gilmore Girls rarely seemed able to get a plausible timeline in place.

It is a two hour drive to Boston from Hartford, meaning it would be around midnight before Lorelai got there, and Rory would have been left alone for hours. The show always made it seem as if Boston was about 40 minutes away.

However ridiculously this occurs, Rory is naturally overjoyed to see her mother, who immediately takes charge of the situation, and stops Sherry from exploiting Rory. Lorelai’s protective mothering really gets a chance to shine here.

Flashback 4

Lorelai is eating a sandwich and watching TV when her labour pains begin. We know it’s a pepper sandwich (I think this means a bell pepper or capsicum sandwich, which sounds weird?), because it was mentioned in an earlier episode. There is a cut, and then we see her at the hospital registry, filling out forms on her own.

She has come to the hospital by herself (presumably in a taxi) and there’s nobody to help her with the paperwork or offer support, not even Christopher. To add poignancy to this, there is a young man standing behind Lorelai with a bunch of flowers for someone, but there is nothing for Lorelai.

“I really, really like you”

LORELAI: I’ll be right there.
RORY: I really, really like you.

A possible reference to the actress Sally Field. In 1985 she received her second Best Actress Oscar for Places in the Heart (1984), and made an acceptance speech which was both admired for its earnest sincerity and mocked for being excessive.

Its closing words were, “I haven’t had an orthodox career. And I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it. And I can’t deny the fact that you like me … right now … you like me! Thank you!”.

Field was making a humorous reference to her dialogue in the 1979 film Norma Rae, but most people missed the reference, and it was widely misquoted as, “You like me! You really, really like me!’. Field later parodied herself when she delivered the line in a commercial for finance company Charles Schwab.

Rory Phones Lorelai in a Panic

RORY: I’m here all by myself and I’m trying very hard to be calm but I’m starting to feel nauseous, and the hospital has a smell, and there are noises, and those gowns do not stay closed and I’ve seen a lot of butts today! And –
LORELAI: Okay, sweetie, calm down.
RORY: I need you … I need you, I need you here, I need you now. I cannot do this alone. I need my Mommy, and dammit, I don’t care who knows it!

Rory has been consistently shown as needing Lorelai’s help to handle even small personal crises, but this time, surely no one can blame her for desperately calling her mother for help. She’s a young adult thrown in the deep end, and must be both hungry and exhausted by now.

Even now, she probably wouldn’t have called Lorelai, except that that she was told that she might well be accompanying Sherry, a woman she barely knows, in order to help her through the birth itself. Rory notoriously doesn’t cope well with “icky” things – even planting bulbs in the garden is gross for her – so you can imagine the trauma witnessing a birth would cause.

Sheldon Harnick

RORY: [on phone] So, we’ll see you next Friday at three. And once again, sorry for the short notice. Okay, bye. [hangs up]
SHERRY: Great, who’s next?
RORY: Um, Sheldon Harnick.

Sheldon Harnick (born 1924), award-winning lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof. His musical Dragons was performed in New Jersey in late 2003, and this is possibly what Sherry is working on promoting.

Sherry says that Sheldon Harnick “hates pregnancy”, so Rory suggests they tell him Sherry has a plumbing issue instead. In real life, Sheldon Harnick is married to actress Margery Gray and is a father, so it doesn’t seem likely he’s really that panicked by pregnancy. In 2011, he was a special guest to a performance of his songs by Kate Baldwin who was seven months pregnant at the time, and they sang a duet together.

Sherry now has Rory handling her business calls at the hospital! Yes, at night! Rory is a people pleaser, specifically an adult pleaser, who genuinely likes to help, so she complies with this obviously terrible treatment.

Flashback 3

In this flashback, Lorelai’s pregnancy has become known to her parents, and Emily and Richard meet with Christopher’s parents, Straub and Francine to discuss it. Straub and Francine are both angry and upset – Francine cries and says she feels sick, while Straub says that everything has been ruined.

The Haydens can only see Lorelai and the baby as a problem to be got rid of. Straub suggests an abortion, and Francine that Lorelai be “sent away” – meaning to a home for unwed mothers, where her baby will taken away and adopted out. Francine’s ideas for handling teen pregnancy are very much outdated, as her plan sounds like something from the 1960s. By the early 1980s, such homes had been closed down and replaced with teen parenthood centres, for young parents to get help.

Richard then tells them his plan – Lorelai and Christopher will get married, they will live with he and Emily, and Christopher will be given a job at the same insurance company Richard works for.

Lorelai and Christopher are listening to the discussion from the stairs, like children – they aren’t invited to be part of it or make any contributions. Lorelai is angry at being left out of the decision-making process, but Christopher passively accepts Richard’s plan, saying that it doesn’t sound too bad, and they will need their parents’ help. Neither of them acknowledge the fact that Richard is essentially forcing them to get married.

While Lorelai still feels independent and rebellious, even though she is now pregnant with an unplanned baby, Christopher is ready to cave in to Richard. Lorelai demands to know what happened to their plan of backpacking around Europe after graduation, and she must already know that Christopher’s adventurous talk was just that – all talk. If Lorelai wants to forge an independent life for herself and her baby, she will have to do it alone.

A quick note that Christine Rose, who appears in this scene as Francine Hayden, went on to play Milo Ventigmiglia’s character’s mother in the TV show, Heroes.

DVD Player

EMILY: I don’t need a DVD player.
LORELAI: Well, why not? Then you could buy all those musicals you love and watch them whenever you felt like it.

DVD player, a machine for playing DVD (Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) digital optical discs. They first became available in the US in 1997, and by the middle of 2003, DVD rentals outsold video rentals for the first time.

Sara Moulton

EMILY: Lelaini made a roast before she left and I heated it up … I even added a little wine to the pan to keep it from drying out.
LORELAI: Well, who died and made you Sara Moulton?

Sara Moulton (born 1952), cookbook author and TV chef. She began working with Julia Child on TV in 1979, went on to a regular position with Good Morning America until 1997, and hosted Cooking Live until 2002, after which she began her new show, Sara’s Secrets. Her first cookbook had come out the previous year in 2002, Sara Moulton Cooks at Home. She continues to be a popular author and TV host.