The Catcher in the Rye Chapter 17 Summary

Holden arrives early to meet Sally, so he sits around in the lobby and watches some girls while he waits.
It's a little depressing to wonder what's going to happen to all these girls in the future, especially since most of them will probably marry dopey guys, or boring guys, whom Holden doesn't understand.
He knew a boring guy, actually, at one of his prep schools, whose only redeeming quality was his being the greatest whistler ever.
Sally shows up. She looks so cute that Holden, who admits he doesn't even really like her, feels like marrying her that very minute.
But then she greets him in a loud, attention-seeking voice.
She's all excited about the show they're going to see (as expected).
The two get in a cab and fool around on the way to the show, with Holden being "seductive as hell."
Then he tells her he loves her, and she replies that she does too. Of course, she does want him to grow his hair longer because his current hairstyle is out-dated.
Anyway, they get around to actually watching this show. Holden says it's not the worst thing he's ever seen, but it still isn't great. He feels like the actors are doing more showing off than real acting, much like Ernie playing the piano in Greenwich.
At the end of the first act, Holden and Sally go out for smokes with all the "phonies" and "jerks" who stand around and talk about the play.
Sally, of course, knows one of the jerks. He's an Ivy League-type named George who went to Andover. He's the kind of guy that, when Sally asks him about the play, he has to step back and give himself room to answer.
George and Sally proceed to engage in phoniness and general name/location dropping.
By the time the show is over and they're back in the cab, Holden is fed up with her. Still, when she asks to go roller skating at Radio City, he agrees (begrudgingly).
Mostly, Sally just wants to rent one of those little skating skirts that just barely covers her butt. A cute butt, Holden concedes, but still.
They're both horrible skaters, so the activity lasts only as long as Sally's ankles can take it. Then they go for a drink. Non-alcoholic, of course.
Sally still wants to know if Holden is intending on coming over to help her trim the Christmas tree.
He changes the subject; he wants to know if she ever gets fed up with life.
This is interesting: Sally keeps telling Holden not to shout, and Holden keeps insisting (to us) that he's not shouting. Hmm.
He's angry about people that discuss how many miles per gallon their car gets, about the phonies at his boarding schools and their social cliques.
Finally, he asks Sally to run away with him. He wants to drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont and live in a log cabin together.
Sally insists that you can't do something like that, again tells Holden to stop screaming at her, and says they'll be plenty of time for such escapades after college.
Holden counters that that isn't true: after college, you have to follow all the rules and play along with all the games.
Then he says "you give me a royal pain in the ass." After this, she "hit the ceiling" and wouldn't accept anything from him, even his profuse apologies. She's even crying, which makes him feel awful.
When she refuses to let him take her home, Holden finds the whole situation to be funny. He laughs, which we can assure you is never a good move in front of a girl you just made cry.
Holden wonders (to himself) why he asked her to go with him to live in a log cabin, since she's not exactly his ideal girl. But he admits that he meant it when he asked her, which in his eyes makes him a little bit of a madman.

Chapter 18

Chapter 16