- There's a huge group of people bustling towards the coat check at the Metropolitan Opera.
- We see Don slipping a bottle of his trademark rye whiskey into his coat, which the attendant then grabs and gives him a numbered coat check receipt in return.
- Don reads his program as the opera begins, clearly anxious. To make things worse, the current scene features a copious amount of booze. Every actor has a drink in hand.
- He's tweaking out. As the actors start performing a line dance, they transform in his mind to dancing rain jackets with bottles in their pockets. It's really trippy, actually.
- This is too much for Don, so he hustles out of the theater as soon as the song ends. He gives the coat check attendant his number and waits for his coat.
- The attendant returns with a leopard print coat (ring a bell?). He explains that the numbers must've gotten mixed up, so Don will have to wait for the person with his number to arrive to get his coat.
- Frustrated, Don begs the attendant for his coat, but he eventually gives up. He waits until the show is over.
- He doesn't find the coat's owner until the room clears out. In case it wasn't obvious already, that person is Helen.
- Don impatiently tries to leave, tossing her umbrella to her. It's a bad throw, so he picks it up and helps her put on her coat.
- He tells her that he knows her name from her coat: Helen St. James. She's from Toledo, Ohio. Okay, that's kind of creepy, pal.
- She tells him that she works for Time magazine and he tells her that he writes novels, though he never finishes anything.
- He asks her if she's going to the show next week and then immediately one-ups himself, asking her to go with him. She agrees.
- She invites him to a party near Washington Square, but Don declines, claiming that he has a friend to visit. That's a lie, of course.
- As he goes to put on his coat, however, the bottle slips out and crashes onto the ground. Helen asks him what's up, and he says that the bottle was for his friend, who's sick.
- Don asks her if the invitation is still open and she says that it is. They walk off together into the rainy night as we dissolve back into the present.