Leslie comes to Chris with her latest endeavor: a commission on gender equality. She has decided the lack of women in their government is criminal and that it's time to do something about it. Chris agrees and they hold a meeting on gender inequality in government, but Leslie is shocked that no department sent a woman to the meeting. The sanitation department is the worst offender, and its department head states that garbage collection is too hard for women. Leslie and April take a garbage route in challenge of this.
Ron watches Diane's daughters, Ivy and Zoe, while their usual sitter is away. He has no idea how to handle the little girls, who make a huge mess of his office, and Jerry and Ann aren't of much help either. At the end of the day, Ron puts on a smile when Diane asks him to babysit again tomorrow, but he's clearly in over his head. Barely into day two, he has no choice but to recruit Ann's help despite her complete disconnect with children.
Tom wants to be able to interact with his teenage customers, so he gets Andy and Ben to teach him basketball. They get on a court to try to teach him the basics, but Tom is completely hopeless.
April and Leslie are doing relatively well on their garbage route until they are assigned to pick up a very large and heavy industrial refrigerator.
Ann is finally able to connect with Diane's daughters when she takes out her nurse kit and plays doctor with them in the conference room. But when she leaves them unattended for a moment, the girls lock themselves in and start chopping off chunks of their hair with Ann's medical scissors. Jerry is able to find the key for the room and stop them but the damage is done. Ann tries to look on the positive side in that Ivy and Zoe didn't hurt themselves, but Ron isn't happy, as he loves Diane and wants to show that he can watch after her kids without something bad happening. Ann, Jerry, Ivy, and Zoe all start laughing and tease Ron for saying he loves Diane.
After hours of failed attempts to move the fridge, April and Leslie are about to give up. The fridge's owner then appears and reveals that the garbage men came three days earlier to remove the fridge and they couldn't get it to budge. Realizing the sanitation department set them up for failure, Leslie devises an alternate solution - since the fridge still works, maybe someone would be willing to take it off their hands. She calls the local soup kitchen, which is able to load the fridge onto a transport truck. The sanitation department claims defeat and agrees to hire three women in their department.
When Diane comes to pick up the girls, Ron's prepared for the worst, but she simply laughs it off, noting that she sees this kind of thing all the time and things could've been worse. She's touched by how concerned and invested he is in the well-being of the girls. In fact, she tells Ron that she loves him for the first time, which he reciprocates.
Tom is disheartened by his bad play on the court but is consoled by Ben when he shows him a clip of professional players talking at a press conference about the times they failed but never gave up. The players' outfits inspire Tom, who decides the business can cater to the teens' post-game clothing needs.
Tropes
- Dude, Not Funny!: Leslie's reaction when April disrupts the meeting with Paula Horke by going on a spiel about how men are better than women.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Even Councilman Milton describes Chris as "beautiful" after initially mistaking the latter for a woman.
- Funny Foreigner: The owner of the large refrigerator has a clear accent and speaks somewhat broken English.
- The Gadfly:
- April during the gender equality meeting.April: You know what? I think men are better than women.
Ann: (to Paula) She's kidding.
April: No, I'm not. They provide for us, and we must obey them because they are our masters.
Leslie: April, stop it.
April: Leslie, you'll never land a beau with that domineering tone. We must always walk behind the men. - When Ron lets slip that he loves Diane, Ann and Diane's daughters start teasing him by chanting, "Ron loves mommy!"
- April during the gender equality meeting.
- Gag Haircut: Ivy and Zoe play "doctor" by chopping off parts of their hair using Ann's medical scissors, resulting in uneven sections cut off from all over their heads.
- Hypocritical Humor: The ancient, doddering city councilor who looks like a light breeze could knock him over claiming Women Are Delicate.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: A lighter version. Ron accidentally lets slip that he loves Diane, which sends Ann, Jerry, and Diane's daughters into giggling fits due to how the usually manly Ron is expressing emotions like this.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Ron assents to looking after Diane's kids one more day, saying, "I'd be delighted." Smash Cut to him at his desk chugging a glass of Scotch.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While the sanitation workers are pretty rude and condescending (as was previously shown with Sewage Joe's sleazy ways in earlier episodes), and appear to be deliberately setting Leslie up to fail with the heavy fridge, they are kind of correct in the fact that not many women apply to the position of handling garbage. If only one type of person is applying for a job position, you cannot reasonably get mad when there is only one type of person working those jobs.
- Maternally Challenged: Ann is awkward at trying to connect with Diane's daughters until she plays doctor with them. In a gender-inverted example, Ron is also at a total loss at how to handle Ivy and Zoe, hence why he practically pleads with Ann to help him.
- Women Are Delicate: What Milton says to justify the lack of women working in the sanitation department.
