Curb Your Enthusiasm “The Bracelet”

So, I did watch the first season when this show was new, or at least the first few episodes.  I even remember this one, mostly because my brother declared quite seriously that women were just like Cheryl in this episode when she decides she wants a particular bracelet.  That sure seemed kinda sexist to me.

Then again, he’s been happily married for 20 years, and I got divorced after five.  Draw your own conclusions.

Alright, I don’t for a minute think that Cheryl’s behavior in this episode is “typical” for a woman or another along those lines.  I will say that she doesn’t come across particularly well in this episode.  Larry doesn’t either, but Larry isn’t supposed to.  Cheryl is, at least on paper, the long-suffering wife (for now) to perpetual grump Larry, a man whose irritating nature rubs all kinds of people the wrong way, and whose personal bad behavior often leads him to social embarrassment and general disappointment.

This episode goes down that route when, after Cheryl returns from a long visit to family in another state, he pays more attention to the closing minutes of a football game than to his wife, and he has to make it up to her.  He actually mostly succeeds, but he has his eye on an expensive bracelet in a jewelry store window, but because he’s dressed in his workout clothes and interacting with an obvious homeless man, the clerks won’t buzz him in.  That means asking Richard Lewis to buy the bracelet on his behalf, but then other things happen, such as the store closing first for a lunch break and then for the day while the two men are helping Michael, a blind man who seems to have taken advantage of their good nature (?), to set up his whole apartment after asking them to move a single box.

And then Larry makes the mistake of telling Richard that Richard can buy the bracelet for his own girlfriend, but when Cheryl finds out, she doesn’t find that acceptable.

OK, so…nobody involved in this conversation actually owns the bracelet.  It’s in a store window.  The store could even, theoretically, sell it to a third party and not sell it to either Larry or Richard.  Why does Cheryl believe she has, like, dibs on this thing or something?  It’s in the window!  For all the world to see!  This is a well-off woman demanding a very particular and no doubt expensive piece of jewelry!  And Larry doesn’t have permission to let someone else buy it either!  Really, nobody looks good in this interaction.  Cheryl had a right to be mad that Larry was ignoring her when she came home, but she absolutely does not have the right to demand that bracelet.

Then again, it was probably just done to show Larry and Richard get in a fight and, once again, Larry doesn’t get buzzed in.

He wouldn’t have had that problem if he’d just tipped the restaurant captain earlier in the episode.