Original air date: May 26, 1952
We open on Ricky pacing around in a suit, fidgeting while Lucy takes her sweet-ass time in the bedroom.
Lucy keeps saying, “I’ll be ready in a minute, dear,” which means an hour because she’s got to put on her makeup, hair products, fake eyelashes, etc. Underneath all the beauty treatments, Lucille Ball was inspiration for The Walking Dead.
“I’ll be ready in a minute, dear.”
The oddest thing about all this is how formal they are – even Ricky:
Husband: I love how they get in dresses and suits just to go to the movies.
Me: But we’re about to go to a live show, and you’re in a t-shirt and shorts.
Husband: We’re in Southern California
Me: So are they.
Husband: We can’t dress like that anymore. It’s a different culture.
Sure, honey.
Turns out, Ethel is always late too. SO late, in fact, that Fred made her leave in her undergarments.
All these jokes about women being late and nobody makes the obvious pregnant joke. What a waste.
Ricky sure is going out of his way to see The Ethel Show.
Ricky tells Fred he has a meeting with his boss tomorrow, and Lucy had better be on time or she’ll really be known as the “late Mrs. Ricardo.” On a related note, I’m going to add the tag “death threat” to posts where Ricky threatens to kill Lucy. So far we’re at 93 or something.
The next night, Lucy is totally on time! She set the clock back! Except she actually should have set it forward, so now they’re an hour late…
Ricky: Look how dark it is, and it’s only 6 o’clock.
Yeah, WE FREAKING KNOW, RICKY. Daylight Savings Time is the actual, absolute worst.
Cut to Alvin and Phoebe Littlefield at home, annoyed at the late couple and fighting over whether or not to display wax fruit.
I’ve got this one: Never display wax fruit.
Yeah, they look super put out by their guests being late. What a horrible night of luxurious reading and light chit-chat.
Alvin is a bit of a tightass:
Littlefield: Phoebe, you know I consider tardiness a major sin.
Oh please. Even God shows up late sometimes. Look at Syria.
Ricky and Lucy finally get there, but the fascists Littlefields have already eaten dinner, washed the dishes, and put everything away. And Lucy is starving.
Alvin goes on and on about how delicious their dinner was, because apparently gluttony isn’t a “major sin.” The pork chops, which he describes in detail, are Lucy’s favorite.
Lucy eventually can’t take it anymore, and she stuffs her face with after-dinner mints before getting her mouth stuck around a wax apple.
I’m surprised Ricky even cares. Ricky, you do realize this wax apple could shut her up forever, right?
It’s not a successful evening. So the next day Ricky decides to make Lucy a schedule.
Ricky: How long does it take you in the bathtub?
Lucy: To do what?
To play with your Rubber Cuban XXL, Lucy, what do you think he means?
Ricky: Fifteen minutes for this, fifteen minutes for that…
Lucy: Oh I’m going to need a lot more than 15 minutes for that.
Lucy, you little minx!
She sticks to the schedule pretty well at first, but she had to cook breakfast the night before because she needed extra time that morning with her Rubber Cuban XXL. She gives Ricky a frozen egg over easy and frozen coffee.
He licks the coffee like a popsicle and it looks pretty good. Indie coffeehouses, get on it. Millenials would buy that shit up at $10 a piece.
Hipsters will name the food truck CoffeePop.
We find out Mr. Littlefield is considering Ricky to manage the club. But Ricky’s recent tardiness is a serious issue.
Littlefield: If a man can’t run his own home, I certainly can’t give him a nightclub to manage.
Y’all, the one job we all thought Lucy had this whole time of managing the house? She doesn’t even have that.
Ricky explains he’s forcing Lucy to stick to a schedule.
Ricky: I have her jumping around like a trained seal.
Ricky Ricardo, once again bringing the romance back to misogyny.
Oddly enough, the guy who plays this dirtbag later becomes Lucy’s boss on The Lucy Show. So he keeps on giving her schedules for years and years.
Ricky invites Mr. Littlefield for dinner, and he decides to bring his wife along, too, so she can see a house can be run on schedule. These guys make me sick, but I’ll hold back from throwing up because Lucy probably doesn’t have the time set aside to clean it.
Soon Mrs. Littlefield, Ethel, and Lucy all realize this situation is as shitty as the toilets they clean… thanklessly…day after day after day.
So that night everyone gathers at the Ricardos’, where the guys are totally blowing their load over this amazing schedule Ricky created. It’s a poster-sized excel spreadsheet, guys. It’s not a fucking Tesla. Calm down.
No joke here. This is just a great shot.
The women run in, and you start to realize the game here: it’s a feminist uprising, and the women are going to ruin these guys’ night by pretending they have no time.
The men don’t even have a few seconds to eat before the women take the food away, and they start to fight over the tiniest crumb. It actually might be torture, but you don’t see me stopping them.
Ricky: (holding back fury) I will talk to you later.
Lucy: OK, I think I have some free time at 11:43 tonight.
Ricky finds a shirt button in his water, and Lucy explains she saved time by washing the clothes and dishes together. I’ve been tempted to do that. When you’re busy and don’t have a dishwasher or laundry in the apartment, you start to think some pretty crazy things. My plan was to wash the dishes, clothes, and bathroom all while washing myself in the shower. I live a glamorous life.
Kids, what we have here is something called “collective bargaining.” These men can either learn how to boil an egg, or they can treat their servant-wives with some respect. There is no option 3.
Lucy didn’t have time to defrost, but I still think I’d take her frozen meat bricks over anything from Hardee’s.
And Ethel only has enough time to throw the biscuits, Lambert’s-style. If you haven’t been to Lamberts, go and get some rolls thrown at you! THIS IS NO JOKE I REALIZE THIS IS A COMEDY SITE BUT I’M NOT FUCKING KIDDING GO TO LAMBERT’S.
Mr. Littlefield is appalled by the whole thing. He tears up the schedule, which seems pretty emasculating and odd. How is this any of his damn business?
Littlefield: Being a slave-driver is no way to run a home. But it’s the only way to run a nightclub, Mr. Manager.
Ew.
Can we all just agree that being a slave-driver is not a way to run anything? Not even a marathon. No slaves. Surely we can agree on this.
So he gives Ricky the job. I guarantee you after the cameras turn off, the guys run out to celebrate at the fights.
And Lucy, Ethel, and Phoebe will clean up the dishes and scrub their husbands’ dirty underwear from when they pooped themselves over that damn schedule earlier. A lovely evening all around.
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“I’ll be ready in a minute, dear.” Lucy is painting her nails with all the shits she doesn’t give.
WTF Lucy 
HILARIOUS!!!
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