A middle-aged man sets the table for two. His sister drops by to give him their late mother's wedding ring, and flowers for the table for this special night. He changes his clothes several times and tries out various ways to propose marriage.

A young woman, struggling to become a novelist, has her life go into a tailspin. Her first novel is rejected, her non-committal boy friend decides to take a powder, her best friend moves to Mexico for an acting job, and her mother announces that her long presumed dead father is actually a hippie photographer who has come to town to meet her. Sinking into a depression at being a total failure at 28, she starts fantasizing about suicide. In her depths of despair she meets various eccentric characters including a chain-smoking Santa Claus and an obnoxious literary agent. But her belief in herself is only restored when she meets a patient in a hospital where she does volunteer work.