The five minute dress

Our episode opens up with a nighttime stock footage of Minneapolis, and up in the newsroom, Ted is wrapping up, talking about a garbage sanitation strike for workers in New York wanting a wage hike, and a spokesman for the striking workers say they will continue to refuse to collect the refuse.

Meanwhile, the mess mounts.

Murray thinks it sounds awful, and Mary agrees, and Ted is signing off, looking down at his cue cards to find ex-out exactly how to sign off, and says, "Good night and good news." Lou comes out of his office and wants something important on his calendar to be translated by Mary.

It's in shorthand.

It's a mayor's commission meeting on crime and violence at eight o'clock.

Ted-- Lou, why he qualifies as an expert on violence, and Lou says, "Just wait till Ted gets here, and I'll show you." So Lou has something else he has to take care of, something personal.

He asks Murray to go in his place, and Murray has plans, so Mary offers to go in Lou's place.

And at first, Lou says, "Thanks, Mary, I don't wanna trouble you," but then hands Mary the tickets and realizes that this isn't for her.

It's something about guys, single guys.

And then Ted decides, as he overhears this, he'd like to go.

So the tickets were for a dinner that support Big Brothers program, and Ted isn't sure that's for him, but it's Tuesday night, and he can't go.

He volunteered to entertain the troops at a local armed forces base, and Mary thinks that's very nice of Ted and asks what he does, and Ted says he does a little comedy.

And Murray says, "Yeah, he's gonna read the news to them and break them up." And Ted says, "Well, they ask me, and I come." And Lou says, "Well, you could reuse," joking on how Ted said the words wrong while giving the New York garbage sanitation strike some wrong words.

And Mary can't believe all the things that the three of them are involved with in top-- on top of their job.

Mary doesn't know where they get the time.

She can't find the time to do anything and says, "You know what I'm doing while you're at your meeting tomorrow?" And talking to each of them.

She's washing her hair.

And Murray says, "I'd give up all my activities if I had hair to wash." Now, in Mary's apartment, Mary and Rhoda are fixing a bicycle or attempting to fix a bicycle and trying to remember righty-tighty or loosey-loose, whatever the joke is there.

They're trying to take screws off a bicycle, and they are not having much success.

And then Phyllis comes in with a little whistle and knock and wants to see how they're filling their evening, and she's a little appalled by the broken bike.

It's Rhoda's we learn, and Phyllis says, "Too much weight on it." The audience laughs.

Rhoda gives her a dirty look, and Rhoda gives the insult right back to Phyllis of course.

Phyllis says she didn't know Rhoda was so interested in ecology, and Rhoda explains, "I'm not.

I'm interested in my thighs." As in Phyllis thought she's riding for the environment, her bicycle, and Rhoda is riding to help with her figure, essentially.

And now Phyllis is talking about her civic club and how she doesn't have time for such things, and Mary can't believe here's someone else that's involved with clubs on top of everything else they do.