OK, so Kerry and Kim are having dinner with Kim’s friends. And one of them said to Kerry:
“I bet she brought a U-Haul on her second date.” She then said it was “lesbian humor.”
I have no idea what it was supposed to mean. My girlfriend couldn’t figure it out either. So, I figured I’d ask… can any of the lesbian women out there explain the joke?
(Or, is ER getting so bad that they have to stoop to gay-bashing, and the joke is meaningless?)
LL
I’m gonna have a punt here.
Maybe it’s a reference to moving in rather quickly ie on the second date she’s already moving in with her.
I dunno 
I wasn’t quite sure either. The only thing that crossed my mind was a U-Haul full of toys.
What does a lesbian bring on the second date?
A U-Haul.
What does a gay man bring on the second date?
What second date?
That’s the joke. (It’s a bit dated. And wasn’t even that funny in the first place, come to think of it.) It’s by a lesbian comedian named Lea Delaria, and it refers to the tendancy for lesbians to shack up relatively quickly.
I hated that whole scene. After they’d been doing such a nice job, they had to go fuck it all up…
ahah! I was right!
Does this make me an honourary lesbian?
Well, that depends on what you’re doing later tonight… 
Thanks, andygirl. I agree it’s not very funny–and I agree that scene was annoying. Those characters reminded me, somehow, of Alyssa Jones’ lesbian friends in “Chasing Amy”–lesbian women who would not, under any circumstances, have a friend who was male, or straight, or even bisexual. Which is hideously stereotypical, and I therefore hate it. At least, however, the stereotype was used to good effect in “Chasing Amy.” Here it was just bad.
(It’s late, and I’m reading this trying to make sure I don’t offend anyone, so I’ll make it absolutely clear: stereotypes are evil. There may be parallels to these stereotypical characters in Real Life[sup]TM[/sup], but I suspect not many people like them.)
LL
The whole scene was just played completely wrong.
I mean… when someone is experiencing a brand-spanking-new sexual orientation… well, there’s some things you just don’t do.
Kim’s been utterly patient and sensitive throught this whole bit, and I refuse to believe that she’d not pick up on Kerry being so uncomfortable… or, for that matter, not tell her friends in advance to back the hell off.
When someone figures out that they’re not straight, it’s just not right to break out with the queer theory and gay comedy. Yeesh. I don’t think that many gay people could reasonably be that dumb and insensitive.
Oh, and the “lifestyle” comment? Hello? You cannot want to have a bona fide same sex relationship without some greater context within the gay community. It just does not work that way.
On the re-read… there’s a compromise between “here’s your pride flag” and “never mention what we do in bed together”…and neither extreme served the characters. At all.
Thanks, Lazarus, for posting this – I was wondering the same thing myself. I agree that the scene was bad, for pretty much all the reasons andygirl posted. The writers were obviously looking for some way to create conflict between Kerry and Kim and picked a rather simplistic way to do it.
Originally posted by andygirl
The episode was a little off in general, with that pedantic immunization bit, but I was able to accept that Kim got carried away in wanting to have a normal relationship with Kerry. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but I keep getting this sense that the other shoe’s going to drop with Kim; she has been patient, but I feel she’s got this flippant attitude that makes me cringe whenever they’re together at work.
I suspect Kerry simply hasn’t realized this yet.
I disagree. Seems that everyone shacks up with everyone in this show. This is the first relationship I’ve seen that isn’t simply taken for granted.
The one complaint I have is that they never kiss. I mean, that hand kiss when Kerry woke up was totally lame. I don’t mean in the sense that I get off on seeing lesbians kiss (though I do), but in the sense that it’s so disingenuous, like the beer commercials in which no one actually drinks the beer. ::sigh:: Too bad ER isn’t a Canadian show.
Hey, I didn’t catch the credits. Was Kim’s friend played by Megan Follows?