Mikey relays the particulars of the spat to Jill, insisting, "It's like she's up on some throne looking down at me, thinking, 'You're bad.'" Jill insists Elispa isn't thinking that, but Mikey is convinced she's not only thinking it, "she's saying it to all [his] ladies." Jill says Elispa just "went overboard" and "she does this sometimes," prompting Mikey to ask if she was "this bad" when Jill lived with her. Jill explains that he only lived with Elisa "for, like, a day," and at the time he wasn't bringing home other women. Mikey asks "why not?" and Jill says there was no room, what with the other men. Or something to that effect. Mikey grouses that Elispa is taking all the fun out of having his own place, and Jill correctly guesses that the only reason Mikey wanted an apartment was to scam on women. Mikey commends Jill for not conforming to the fascist "I love you" imperative set in motion by Jack. He sagely advises Jill to jab himself with a toothpick each time he feels himself sliding down the slippery slope to "Big Three reciprocity." "It's Pavlovian!" Mikey says, with facial gestures appropriate to the promotion of a nutritious yet tasty breakfast cereal.

Ferret lies nibbling orts on the bed and asks where Jill and Jack are going. "To a party," Jack says listlessly and Ferret jibes, "And you're in such a party mood." Jack hovers over the supine Ferret, sneering, "And what are you guys doing tonight? Gonna burn up the sheets again?" She then cackles as if she might cough up her lungs while Ferret stares at her with vague concern. What do you know, another knock on the door! Everyone's got a key to the lobby in ManNOTtan! It's Jill again, just in time to swap petulant inanities with Jack about those three pesky words. She's all tricked out like a Care Bear in a fuzzy blue robe, which Jill designates as "cute -- not ready, but cute." Jack bustles anally about the kitchen island explaining that she doesn't want to go to the party -- but he should go anyway. She reveals in the halting tones of a Diane Keaton manqué that she's upset, but she doesn't want to be, and she knows she's not supposed to be mad and has no right to be mad, but this isn't just about her saying what she said and him not responding; it's about more than that. Jill takes the bait and asks what it's about and she says, "It seems like ever since we met it's been about you pursuing me. And I liked that. I like that. Well now all of a sudden it seems like it's been flipped, or tipped, the other way. And you know, I just feel shaky. And I don't like that." "I see," says Goofus, looking steamed all of a sudden. "So then this doesn't work unless you're the one being adored the most -- or the loudest?" Jack denies saying that, but Jill's twitching eyebrows reveal that he's well on his way to an adenoidal aria of epic proportions. "Yes, that's exactly what you just said, maybe you don't realize it, Jack," he begins. "I can't promise that I'm always going to be the one taking the lead. Sometimes it's going to have to be you. You're going to have to be okay with it!" As he winds down his eyelids flutter as if on a dimmer switch, and he walks out abruptly, leaving Jack to look stricken while fondling the belt ends of her Teletubby costume.